The ports in Lagos are lagging behind its competitors in West Africa as container trade volume reached $294 billion in 2017.
It was gathered that the emergence of deep sea port has made Lome in Togo to become the major West African container port, surpassing Lagos Port with over 194,000 TEUs.
Despite being the largest port in the region’s largest economy, Lome Port delivered better efficient services than Nigerian ports in 2017 because of the high turnaround time of vessels as shipping lines have taken advantage of the modern deep-water and new terminal at the detriment of shallow waters in Nigeria to assign larger ships to other West African ports.
It was revealed that Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has started bringing vessels of up to 14,000 TEU to Lome Port, while Abidjan is already established as a hub port in Ivory Coast.
Although, Lagos Port was the highest ranked port in West African in 2015, it has now been ranked fifth in terms of liner connectivity.
It was gathered that the chronic traffic congestion has made Nigerian port to lose ships and cargoes traffic to Lome and other container terminals in the region.
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