Rabat – Spain’s El Pais listed Tanger Med Port’s assets, emphasizing its strength in the region in a lengthy report.
On Sunday, El Pais highlighted that Morocco’s Tanger Med Port continues to have a negative impact on Spanish ports.
“Spain had been losing ground since King Mohammed VI inaugurated this infrastructure in 2007,” El Pais said.
The Spanish news outlet said the container activity of the Tanger Med port complex exceeded the threshold of 5.7 million twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) containers.
The number is larger than what Spanish ports can/ have handled, including the port of Valencia (5.4 million), and Algeciras (5.1 million).
Tanger Med Port finished 2020 by processing more than 80 million tonnes of goods, achieving an increase of 20% compared to 2019.
The cited data enabled the port to achieve significant progress in the latest “Lloyd’s List” and “Container Management” rankings, where Morocco’s port in Tangier ranked 35th in 2019.
El Pais said the port’s strength is its infrastructure, recalling that the hub has free zones that can host more than 900 companies.
The companies have over 75,000 employees, including in the automotive, aeronautics, textiles, and logistic sectors.
El Pais also cited the recent extension of Tanger Med II, tripling the port’s capacities from three million to nine million containers per year.
The Spanish news outlet quoted the president of the Port Authority of Algeciras Geraldo Landaluce, who described Morocco as a “strong competition” in the ports field.
El Pais is not the first international media to put the spotlight on Tanger Med and its assets.
In February, Bloomberg said Morocco’s port dominated cargo traffic, outpacing Spain’s major hubs, including Algeciras.
Policy manager at the European Shippers’ Council Jordi Espin said the port has been growing.
“It has hired top professionals, with an international education, and now has a very, very clear business plan.”
Bloomberg said Spanish ports, including Algeciras, have long dominated cargo traffic between the Mediterranian Sea and the Atlantic.
However, Morocco’s performance in recent years is rapidly “jeopardizing that hegemony,” according to Bloomberg.
