With the Tangier Med port, Morocco stands to benefit from the security crisis in the Red Sea, which has cut Suez Canal traffic by almost half, causing serious damage to European ports.

Since the Houthi militias (Shiites) began carrying out attacks in the Red Sea, most commercial, oil and gas vessels have preferred to make the detour via the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Faced with this security crisis, which has driven up fares by 21% and freight costs by 150%, shipping companies are looking for cheap, efficient and well-located ports to serve as logistics bases on this new route, reports La Vanguardia.

This is where Morocco comes in, with its good port infrastructure, notably the port of Tanger Med on the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar. "Tanger Med is now the port that's on the rise," assert industry sources who are closely monitoring the Red Sea crisis, pointing out that the Moroccan port.

Thanks to its strategic geographical position (between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, between Africa and Europe), high capacity and competitive rates, by the end of 2023 it will be the leading Mediterranean port for container traffic, well ahead of the Spanish ports of Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona. Located twenty kilometers from Sebta, Tanger Med is an ideal port for transshipment of goods.

Morocco is also planning to build another major commercial port in Nador, 50 kilometers from Melilla, to encourage the creation of two major economic activity zones in these Moroccan cities, close to the two Spanish enclaves. The crisis in the Red Sea, whose end is unknown, could enable the kingdom to achieve this strategic objective.

Meanwhile, Europe is hard hit by the crisis, which has already reduced traffic through the Suez Canal by 45%. The hardest-hit ports are the Italian ports of Genoa, Gioia Tauro, Malta, Trieste, the port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Greek port of Piraeus, according to industry sources.

bladi.net