Dubai's DP World records beats wider industry with near 10% gain in 2021 container volumes
Dubai port operator India and China port operations provide significant lift
Dubai: The Dubai-owned port operator DP World Ltd handled an impressive 77.9 million TEU at its network of container terminals in 2021, with gross container volumes up 9.4 per cent year-on-year. The Jebel Ali port handled 13.7 million TEUs during the year, up 1.9 per cent on 2020 volumes.
Among its global port holdings, Qingdao in China and the Indian ports of Mumbai, Mundra and Chennai provided the strongest boost. There were also improved volumes from Sokhna in Egypt, the London Gateway, and Caucedo in the Dominican Republic.
"We are delighted to report another strong volume performance with growth of 9.4 per cent for the year, which is once again ahead of industry growth of 6.5 per cent," said Sultan Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO. "This outperformance is due to our continued investment in high quality assets in the right locations and the delivery of our strategy to offer integrated supply chain solutions to beneficial cargo owners.
"All our regions delivered volume growth with India being a key driver and, encouragingly, Jebel Ali delivered a steady performance."
45.4m TEU
Omicron intervention
The year could have closed even higher were it not for the Omicron burst during the fourth quarter, which cut off movements as countries once again took heavy precautions. In the fourth quarter, DP World handled 19.6 million TEU, up 2.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
According to Bin Sulayem, this was expected. Plus, inflationary pressures were bearing down on shipping movements.
“Growth rates moderated in the final quarter of 2021 as the new covid variant, inflation and supply chain bottlenecks impacted global growth,” the Cahriamn added. “Looking ahead to 2022, we expect our portfolio to continue to deliver growth and, while the year has started encouragingly, we remain mindful that the COVID-19 pandemic, continued supply chain disruptions, rising inflation and geopolitical uncertainty could continue to hinder the global economic recovery.”
The strong volume performance leaves us well placed to deliver an improved set of full year results and we remain focused on delivering our 2022 leverage target