Puerto Cartagena de Colombia led the registry of ports in Latin America and the Caribbean that appeared in a global list of ports with the greatest direct connections, which is part of a report prepared by Jan Hoffmann, Director of Trade and Logistics of UNCTAD and Julian Hoffmann, a London-based data analyst.

According to the document, in the second quarter of 2020, 939 container ports in the world received regular shipping services. If all ports had direct services to each other, there would be 440.391 direct maritime connections from port to port. However, in reality only 12.748 pairs of ports have these direct connections, that is, 2,9% of the theoretical total. For the remaining 97,1% of the port pairs, it is necessary for the containers to be transhipped at intermediate ports. To examine the characteristics of the maritime transport network, the data provided to UNCTAD by the MDS Transmodal was used.

Ports as nodes of the maritime transport network

The report describes the position of a port in the transport network by 1) the node degree that corresponds to the number of ports with which the port has a direct connection and 2) intermediation between two ports, which is the importance of a port for trade between other ports that are connected to each other through transshipment.

The best connected ports in 2020

According to the “degree” measure, Shanghai is the best connected port in 2020 with 288 direct connections, followed by Busan (274 direct connections), Antwerp (268) and Rotterdam (264). In Africa, Tanger Med has the highest grade (137 direct connections).

In Latin America and the Caribbean among the TOP 50 in direct connections. are listed: 29) Cartagena (Colombia) 130; 31) Chamomile (Panama) 127; 41) Kingston (Jamaica) 106; 48) Veracruz (Mexico) 94; and 50) Balboa (Panama) 92.

Regarding the intermediation between two ports, that is, for how many "port-to-port" connections a port is among the best options to reduce the number of necessary transhipments to a minimum, Rotterdam is the port that topped the list in 2020, with 42.656 connections between ports that include it in their optimal routes. In other words, of the world total of 440.391 port-to-port connections, for 9,7% of the optimal routes, Rotterdam is included as a transhipment port. The second and third largest difference is calculated for Antwerp and Hamburg. While in Latin America and the Caribbean they are among the Top 50: 27) Guayaquil from Ecuador; 28) Balboa from Panama and 42) Freeport in the Bahamas.

According to the “brokerage” criterion, the main European ports are better connected than the main Asian ports, while according to the “degree” criterion, the Asian ports are better connected. It should be considered that some of the ports with a high degree of intermediation do not have a high number of direct connections. However, they are centrally located in their region and may be the best placed ports to connect other ports through.

How many options do shippers have?

In addition to brokerage options, shippers may also have different shipping lines to choose from. Among the 12.748 direct connections that do not require transshipment in 2020, in 6.017 of them (47,2%) the services are provided by a single shipping company, while in 2.751 routes (21,6%) there is competition between two providers, and in the remaining 3.980 pairs of ports (31,2%) there are three or more shipping companies that offer their container maritime transport services (figure 4).

The pairs of ports that are best connected by direct services is Ningbo-Shanghai, with 52 shipping lines providing direct services between the two ports. They are followed by Port Klang -Singapore with 41; Busan - Shanghai with 38; and Shanghai-Quingdao with 37.

The 50 best-connected pairs of ports are found on intra-regional routes, almost exclusively intra-Asian, except for two intra-European connections, which are Antwerp - Rotterdam with 24 lines and Hamburg - Rotterdam with 23. In other regions, too, they are mainly ports neighbors those who are better connected to each other. These intraregional connections do not carry much cargo between neighboring ports, but the great connectivity is the result of being connected to the same overseas routes, in combination with feeder and transshipment services.