The effects of seaport efficiency on trade performance in Africa

ABSTRACT

Seaports and their efficiency remain essential for the success of international trade globally. Notwithstanding this outcome, there is no empirical evidence on how seaport efficiency affect trade performance in Africa. This paper presents an empirical evidence of the effects of seaport efficiency on trade performance in Africa. To do so, we use data on 33 African countries for the period 2006 to 2018 and employ the gravity model for the empirical analysis. The results show that seaport efficiency enhances trade performance in Africa; the greater the level of seaport efficiency, the larger the extent of trade performance. Based on this finding, it is recommended that policy reforms that improve the efficiency of seaports in Africa should be targeted by policymakers.

KEYWORDS:

• seaport efficiency
• trade performance
• gravity model
• Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. On the basis of percentage changes for the period 2006 to 2015, it is −9.3 (−12.3) documents, −22 (25) days, and cost 28.6 (36.3) to exports (imports) in Africa, that of Americas it is −0.5 (3.8) documents, −21 (−25.3) days, and cost 24 (19) to exports (imports); for Asia it is −1.2 (−8.5) documents, −14.9 (−18.5) days, and cost 39.4 (35.2) to exports (imports), and that of Europe it is −4.9 (−10.7) documents, −11 (−14) days, and cost 17 (13) to exports (imports), respectively (Sakyi et al. 2017).

2. The choice of variables, countries, and time period is due to data availability. Figure 1 shows the location of countries considered in the paper while Table A3 report the list of countries.

Figure 1. Map showing the locations of the study area.

3. Zero bilateral trade flows may occur due to missing information or the absence of trade between country pairs. This issue leads to selection bias if not properly addressed.

4. Readers should refer to Cheong and Tang (2015) on further reading on how multilateral resistance term is constructed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Volkswagen Foundation, Germany within its Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in sub-Saharan Africa [Grant number: 94665].