Tanger Med is set to exceed its nominal capacity of 9 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) this year, according to deputy director Rachid Houari. This new record will enable the port complex, the 4th most competitive container port in the world, to confirm its leadership in Africa and the Mediterranean.

Tanger Med is set to exceed its nominal handling capacity of nine million twenty-foot equivalent containers (TEUs) this year.

This was revealed by its deputy director Rachid Houari, to Reuters. “Now, each terminal does a little more traffic than the theoretical capacity, so I think we'll do a little better than nine million containers,” he said.

According to the same source, the tensions in the Red Sea had had little impact on traffic growth. “Containers crossing the Red Sea account for only 25% of the port's traffic, and many ships still pass through the Suez Canal despite the disruptions,” it stressed, pointing out that the bulk of the port's traffic is with Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Fourth most competitive container port in the world

The Strait city's port complex handled 8,617,410 TEU containers in 2023, up 13.4% on 2022, confirming its leading position in Africa and the Mediterranean, ahead of the Spanish ports of Valencia and Algeciras.

These fine performances have enabled Tanger Med to be the fourth most competitive container port in the world, according to the recent report “The Container Port performance index 2023” published by the World Bank and Standard & Poor's Global Market Intelligence.

The year 2024 is also off to a good start, with the Tangier port handling a volume of 33.2 million tonnes of goods in the first quarter of 2024, up 14.9% on the same period last year, according to figures published by Tanger Med Port Authority (TMPA).

Sales also increased by 18.3% in the first three months of the current year, to exceed MAD 1 billion.

In addition to port activities, Tanger Med, which has 1,200 industrial zones employing 110,000 people, would like to expand these areas “from 2,500 to 5,000 hectares to attract more investors in high value-added industries”, according to Rachid Houari.

Companies whose exports had reached a value of $15 billion by 2023, i.e. 20% of Morocco's total exports last year.

Elimane Sembène