Port of Salalah’s Global Strength Confirmed by Container Port Global Ranking

Containerisation International has recently issued its annual guide to the world’s Top 100 container ports for 2012 where the Port of Salalah has achieved ranking among the top 30 global ports by annual volume for the third year running.

The guide supplies not only the latest figures for the ports up to end 2012 but also a broad summary of the ports’ activity and key data. In a list of Middle Eastern top ports the Port of Salalah maintained its fifth place ranking with container volumes registering at 3.62 million, nearly equal to the volume handled at Port Said which handled approximately 3.63 million in 2012.

Port of Salalah saw a 13.1% growth in container volumes in 2012, reversing an 8.2% fall in 2011 when there was a shift in transhipment traffic. As a port which has historically relied on transhipment cargo, Salalah has assembled a 20-year port master plan that developslocal Omani energy and commodities production, which would offset vulnerabilities in fluctuations of the global container shipping market.

“Ports are facing increasing competitive pressure, and Salalah’s growth and development will be measured by our ability to continue driving local investment growth, and by our internal teams in delivering efficiency and consistently good customer service,” said Ahmed Akaak, acting CEO at the Port of Salalah.

Recently a delegations team from the Public Establishment for Industrial Estate (PEIE) had visited the Port of Salalahto explore mutual opportunities to attract investments seeking supply chain efficiencies and smart solutions for their logistics requirements.

Akaak added, “We are working closely to provide Industrial Estates customers with the best logistic solutions to export their products to the rest of the world. These companies can grow only when there are the supply chain solutions in place to help them deliver higher volumes and to expanded markets. We have achieved a lot of success for the growth of existing customers at the Raysut Industrial Estate and Salalah Free Zone.”

In a separate study on global ports issued recentlyissued by the JOC Group, Port of Salalah has ranked sixth top transshipment port globally and 18th top port globallybased on port productivity, which had tracked efficiency in berth movements for the past 5 years across 600 port terminals.

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Zawya, September 17, 2013