Container Terminal Market Assessment, Mauritius

Container Terminal Market Assessment, Mauritius

We were appointed by Mauritius Ports Authority in 2002 to make an independent assessment of future container traffic. The methodology involved a review of the economic and costs drivers for traffic as follows:

The two main demand drivers for Captive Container Traffic were:

• Direct Demand: the level of activity in sectors that use containers to ship their imported raw materials and/or exported finished goods. This was dominated by the EPZ sector, which comprised mainly textiles, and faced many challenges and opportunities.
• Indirect Demand: the demand for consumer goods, foodstuffs and other general cargo, which was shipped in containers.  This was affected by overall activity in the economy and therefore expected to grow in line with GDP. Growth in GDP would depend on how Mauritius met challenges in the sugar sector, and its success in restructuring the economy towards new economic activities such as financial services, tourism and Information Communications Technology (ICT).

Transhipment Container Traffic would be determined by market developments in two related areas:

• Hub-and-Spoke: linking Mauritius with regional East African and Indian Ocean markets. This would depend on regional demand, logistics trends, and Mauritius’ competitive position with respect to other potential/existing transhipment ports, which in turn would be determined by cost of feedering, port tariffs, productivity etc.
• Relay (Interlining): linking Indian Ocean deepsea services with other deepsea routes. This sector was harder to assess, as it would be driven by the particular decisions of specific companies and their logistics strategies.