APM Terminals (APMT) has announced that Meridian Port Services (MPS), located in the Port of Tema, Ghana, has achieved an all-time productivity record of 139.91 movers per hour.
In a statement, the terminal operator said the achievement came shortly after the first call of the Hapag-Lloyd Middle East-India-Africa Express (MIAX) service for the transshipment of fresh fruit. The call was made at the MPS Terminal 3.
It attributed the record to to the $1.18 billion (€1 billion) investment in the Port, which was completed earlier in 2020, as well as national reforms to help transshipment trade.
MPS is a joint venture between Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (30%), APM Terminals (35%) and Bolloré Transport and Logistics (35%).
“The new MPS Terminal 3 has the ideal characteristics required of hub ports around the world,” said Mohamed Samara, Chief Executive Officer of MPS.
“These include; high efficiency levels, accessibility, frequency of calls, number of shipping lines, short waiting times at anchorage, fast vessel turnaround time, higher port capacity, and berth availability as well as the highest throughput per vessel call in West Africa.”
Hapag Lloyd’s decision to use MPS Terminal 3 to transship between South Africa and Europe was announced in October 2019 and subject to the successful completion of the Tema Port Expansion Project, according to APMT.
The MIAX service is designed to offer direct connections and fast transit times between the Persian Gulf, India, Sri Lanka, La Réunion through to South and West Africa.
“The new MIAX service enables us to offer our customers very attractive transit times between South and West Africa, Middle East and India, at the same time, we are integrating Africa even more tightly into our global network” said Samad Osman, Managing Director of Hapag-Lloyd’s Area Africa.
Commenting on the legal reforms which preceded the record, Frank Ebo Brown, Head of Legal and Compliance at MPS, said new transshipment laws allowed “a much more robust and fluid transshipment process to reflect present happenings in major shipping hubs”.
Peter Mac Manu, Board Chairman of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, also commented and emphasised Ghana’s potential as a hub of transshipment trade.
“With the rolling out of the Africa Free Continental Trade Agreement (AfFCTA), Ghana is in a position to harness this opportunity in the areas of job creation and trade facilitation,” he said.
The creation of direct services and reduction in the transit times will result clear trade efficiency. He added that this will significantly open up the economy to more industries and sustainable investments.”
