Cape Town: Port of Cape Town has received necessary improvements and is ready for private sector management. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis congratulated the officials on their modest improvement in the World Bank’s world port efficiency rankings.
Lewis marked that it reiterates the private sector management of the Port of Cape Town, which needed to welcome this improvement urgently. The port gained the most points at global level in the 2024 Container Port Index (CPPI), which was published by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, where it has moved up from last position to 400th out of 403 ports.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that Port of Cape Town has achieved the most improved score globally in the latest World Bank Index and congratulated the port management and new Transnet Leadership for encouraging albeit modest, progress.
The port still managed to remain among the bottom five in the world index. This showed how far behind the port has been lagging and underscored the urgent need for Transnet to bring in private sector management to consolidate the ‘Green Shoot’ gains.
According to Lewis, an efficient port is essential for creating jobs and its growth in the region. Due to which they are calling for the urgent completion of the national government’s Request For Information process on private sector partnerships for the Port of Cape Town. He said that they need continued investment to make progress in port upgrades alongside more private sector involvement in running the port.
Considering this, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Economic Growth – Alderman James Vos said that an efficient port could create 20,000 new jobs, add R6 billion in exports and over R1.6 billion in new tax revenue according to research from the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism.
Vos said that they should see further rankings improvement due to Transnet’s ongoing R3.4 billion capital investment which includes dozens of new cranes this year with critical anti-sway technology to protect operations from wind. This should improve the port’s ability to cope with weather-related disruptions which have forced exporters to divert goods elsewhere at huge costs.
However, still being globally competitive, they showed the need for new infrastructure to be complemented by private sector leadership in the port operations.