The Role of Port Efficiency in enhancing the Implementation of African Continental Free Trade Agreement

Abstract

In 2018, the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement-AfCFTA was established and signed based on the consent of fifty-four African nations. Five years later, only eight African nations have kicked off with the implementation of the AfCFTA guidelines. The African nations that have started implementing AfCFTA are: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania, Tunisia and Cameroun. These nations with the exception of Rwanda are coastal nations. What is the role of port efficiency in enhancing the successful implementation of the AfCFTA? The enactment of the AfCFTA is of tremendous benefit to the Maritime value chain as over 98% of global trade is done by sea. The focus of this research is to examine the role of port efficiency, port performance in enhancing the implementation of the AfCFTA. An efficient port will accelerate the international trade process and vice versa. The Data Envelopment Analysis-Malmquist Productivity index (DEA-MPI) is a critical tool for evaluating port efficiency and the determinant of the drivers of port productivity. In this research, the DEA-MPI is critical to for determining the drivers of productivity for the period of 2015-2021. This research is, both an examination and evaluation of efficiency and productivity for North, West and Indian Ocean ports. Using the DEA-VRS, Port Goulette, Gabes, Mauritius, Tema and Takoradi, maintained an efficiency level of 1 or 100% for the six year period of examination. The other ports like Port Rades, Sousse and Sfax were inefficient for the six years of examination since they had efficiency level of less than 100% or 1. The Malmquist is the product of the TC, SC and EC. The average MPI for the nine ports over the 6 year period are; MPI greater than 1 for the following ports, Port Goulette, Bizerte, Sousse, Sfax, and Gabes whilst Port Rades, Tema, Takoradi, Mauritius had MPI=1