The fifth edition of the IAPH World Ports Tracker has been published. It contains the most comprehensive situation report on economic activity provided by ports themselves, as well as by using S&P Global container market intelligence data and now, for the first time, UNCTAD’s Liner Shipping Connectivity Index (LSCI), both on container trade trends. The LSCI can be considered a proxy for accessibility to global trade through the container shipping network. The higher the index, the easier it is to access a high capacity and frequency global maritime containerised freight transport system and effectively participate in international trade, especially for manufactured goods. The comparison of LSCI in the second quarter of 2023 with the same period of 2022 illustrates the significant changes that took place during the last year in sub-Saharan Africa, where new countries are emerging among the best-connected ones in the region, and the considerable LSCI improvements that occurred in South-East Asia (with some exceptions), in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean Sea. A report summary of this edition of the World Ports Tracker can be found in the September-October edition of Ports & Harbors. Survey respondents as well as attendees registered for the IAPH 2023 World Ports Conference are receiving a full copy of the 100-page report, prepared by our experts Theo Notteboom and Thanos Pallis, which also includes comprehensive regional analyses.
