Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Port topped a global list of most efficient container ports, beating major US and Asian trade gateways.

The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Container Port Performance Index for 2021 said in a report released on Wednesday that ports in the Middle East took four of the top five spots. 

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Port tops the ranking in 2021, with regional competitors Port Salalah in Oman, Hamad Port in Qatar and Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi rounding out the top five. Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Islamic Port also featured strongly in eighth place overall.

The ranking is based on the time vessels needed to spend in port to complete workloads over the course of 2021, "a year that saw unprecedented port congestion and disruption to global supply chains," the report said.

In terms of efficiency, King Abdullah Port achieved an average of 97 container moves per hour of vessel port time compared with just 26 container moves per hour at the main ports on North America's West Coast.

The Moroccan port of Tanger-Med, in 6th place, is the highest ranked port in Europe and North Africa. Cartagena in Colombo (12) ranks highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, while Port Matadi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (171) is the best performing port in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Three of the large Chinese gateways, Shanghai (Yangshan), Ningbo and the southern port of Guangzhou, feature in the top 10, while last year's most efficient port – Yokohama in Japan – dropped to 10th place overall.

The US Port of Virginia is the highest ranked in North America, followed by Miami (29) and Halifax in Canada (46).

More than four-fifths of global merchandise trade by volume are carried by sea, and approximately 35 percent of total volumes and over 60 percent of commercial value is shipped in containers, according to the report.

(Writing by Brinda Darasha; editing by Seban Scaria)

brinda.darasha@lseg.com