Not only was there a 4% drop in container traffic, but long-standing deficiencies in infrastructure, poor regulation, and facilitation problems were all exposed, says the report, which looked at 88 ports across several sub-regions; all reported negative results compared to 2019.

The South America east coast (CEAS), which includes land-locked Paraguay’s river ports, reported a 0.2% drop in trade, while the west coast (COAS) dropped 3.1%. The Caribbean as a whole was down 4.9% while Central America showed differences depending on whether the Caribbean coast (-5.7%) or the Pacific coast (-3.1%) was considered. Mexico saw decreases of 9.8% and 8% respectively on its  Gulf and Pacific coasts while Panama reported year-on-year declines of 15.1% at its Caribbean ports and one of 30.4% at Pacific ports.

Total international trade by water transport reached an all-time high of 11.945 Bt in 2019, but fell to 11.494 Bt in 2020, a year-on-year drop of -3.8% (Clarksons, 2021).Global container trade, measured in TEU, was already showing year-on-year declines at the start of 2020, compared to 2019. In May 2020, the year-on-year fall became more severe, reaching 11.4%. By July 2020 volumes were almost identical to the same period of 2019, with a year-on-year variation of -0.1%, and by August year-on-year rises had appeared, lasting through to December. The cumulative global change for January to December 2020 compared to 2019 was -0.9%.

In Latin America, figures for March 2020 were 0.7% lower than the same month of 2019, followed by sharp drops of 15.8% in April 2020, 16.8% in May and 16.1% in June. In October, there was a return to year-on-year growth, but not enough to revisit the levels of 2019. For the full year there was a year-on-year fall of 2.9% compared to 2019.

The top 10 ports (left) were followed by Buenaventura, Altamira & Tampico, Lázaro Cárdenas,  Paranagua,  Coronel, Cartagena Bay (SPRC & CTC), Valparaíso, Puerto Cortés, Caucedo, and Santo Tomas de Castilla.

The report concludes by suggesting that “the current crisis should be an opportunity to change production patterns and promote digital trade and logistics innovation, in order to increase competitiveness […] in the region.”