Carriers, forwarders pile in to Africa trade as demand surges

Carriers and forwarders are aggressively expanding their footprints across Africa to capture soaring import demand that has made the Asia-Africa trade lane the world's fastest-growing container shipping corridor this year.

Around 70% of Africa’s total imports are from China and India, driven by the continent’s demographic growth, rapid urbanization and the development of major industrial projects.

But demand is growing faster than the port and inland logistics infrastructure needed to support it, with enormous volumes from Asia flooding into the continent and overwhelming ports and hinterland corridors.

“There are not many routes where container capacity has nearly doubled in two years,” said Stefan Verberckmoes, senior analyst at Alphaliner.

Data from Alphaliner shows the spectacular growth of the Asia-Africa trade over the last two years. On July 1 this year, 185 container ships were deployed between Asia and West Africa for a total combined capacity of 1.4 million TEUs, up almost 30% compared to July 2025, which was 40% higher than July 2024.

The latest volume data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS) also reflects the rising trade. Asia to sub-Saharan Africa in May was the fastest growing import region for the 13th time in the past 16 months on a year-over-year basis, according to CTS. Over those 16 months, African imports were up 52%, with May's volume of 5 million TEUs an increase of 14.3% compared to the same month last year.

Rates have risen in tandem with the growing volume. Average spot rates from Asia to West Africa are up 43% compared to the first week of January at $5,315 per FEU, according to rate benchmarking platform Xeneta. Asia-East Africa rates are up 35% at $5,310/FEU.

The trade figures are impressive, but the volume is placing Africa’s developing supply chain infrastructure under severe pressure.

Thomas Orting Jorgensen, head of trade management for Africa at Hapag-Lloyd, highlighted challenges generated by the rising demand and the constraints this was likely to place on market growth.

"Terminal capacity and especially inland capacity is going to be the biggest bottleneck for continuous growth," he told the Journal of Commerce. "We already see that at key gateways. Most of them are choked, delaying and slowing (the) turnaround of vessels so no other vessels can be berthed.

“You can theoretically add ships, but if they just wait outside ports, you don’t really increase capacity,” Orting Jorgensen added.

The bottlenecks can be seen in Africa’s poor schedule reliability. On-time performance in the second quarter was just 24%, down three percentage points from the first quarter, with average wait times of four days, according to Xeneta.

Despite the infrastructure issues, Hapag-Lloyd expects to surpass 1 million TEUs into sub-Saharan Africa this year, with a roadmap to double that volume by 2030.

“The growth into Africa has outperformed our expectations and we saw that continue into 2026,” Orting Jorgensen said.

To combat Africa's port capacity limitations, Hapag-Lloyd is consolidating volume on fewer ships to improve operational efficiency where berth access is restricted. The carrier is using the Moroccan transshipment hub of Tanger-Med to combine volumes from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, South America, and Latin America onto single systems serving the West African port range.

The carrier also has a Middle East/Colombo-linked service into Durban, Tema, and Lagos, and a direct Asia service focused on Kribi, Luanda, Pointe-Noire, and Matadi. The East Coast ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam are served through partnerships with other carriers.

Inland logistics under pressure

Philippe Labonne, CEO of Africa Global Logistics (AGL), a subsidiary of Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC), said the issue was less about the number of ports capable of accommodating the largest ships and more about the hinterland's capacity to absorb the resulting cargo volumes.

He pointed out that when a next-generation vessel calls at an African port, it can discharge several thousand containers within a few hours.

“This concentration of flows puts significant pressure not only on terminal infrastructure but above all on downstream facilities: roads, warehouses, customs systems and inland logistics networks,” Labonne told the Journal of Commerce.

“The terminals we operate are often located in city centers, limiting opportunities for physical expansion, as is the case in Abidjan, Conakry and Freetown,” he said.

Labonne did not believe this constituted a ceiling on volume growth and could be addressed by “anticipation and investment.” He said port capacity expansion must be accompanied by comparable investments in logistics corridors, rail infrastructure, inland platforms and multimodal solutions.

“Part of the pressure observed today is due to the rapid deployment of much larger vessels and the resulting step change in scale, while inland infrastructure development naturally follows longer and more gradual investment cycles involving both private operators and public authorities,” Labonne said.

Carriers aggressively target African trade

The increasing size of ships deployed on the Asia-Africa trades and the rising call sizes – the number of containers loaded and unloaded during a port call – was captured in S&P Global Port Performance data.

The latest available data shows the average call size of ships at the Ghanian hub of Tema in May was up 17% compared to January at close to 2,000 TEUs. In the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan, average call sizes were up 30% at 1,829 TEUs, and at Lomé in Togo, call sizes were stable at just over 1,000 TEUs. S&P Global is the parent of the Journal of Commerce.

While Hapag-Lloyd significantly expanded its regional presence with the takeover of Africa specialist carriers NileDutch in 2021 and Deutsche Africa Line in 2022, rival carriers are also aggressively targeting one of the world's most dynamic developing markets.

MSC last year became the first carrier to deploy 24,000-TEU ships on the Africa trade to serve the rapid growth in demand with scheduled services calling at Lomé, Abidjan, Tema, and Kribi in Cameroon.

CMA CGM has a major presence in the African market, with six Asia-West Africa loops, five to the East Coast, and is invested in eight container terminals across the continent. In February, the carrier relocated its Africa regional base from the Marseilles head office to Abidjan.

Maersk has also been building its Africa portfolio. In the second quarter, the carrier increased direct loops between Asia and West Africa from three to four services to improve reliability and handle surging regional demand.

Structural shift in demand

As carriers expand services to the continent, Sascha Geiken, vice president of ocean freight for the Middle East and Africa at DHL Global Forwarding, called the rising demand a structural shift rather than a short-term spike.

“China-Africa is one of our fastest-growing trades,” he told the Journal of Commerce. “And it’s not only ocean freight that is growing because we see super strong growth in our air freight activities.”

Geiken also highlighted the key constraints facing many African gateway ports that cannot handle larger vessels efficiently, piling pressure on liner networks and broader container flows.

“We see in several countries that the demand is growing, the vessels calling at the ports are getting bigger, but the infrastructure outside the ports is also not able to handle the massive growth,” he said.

Once the cargo leaves the port and is on the road, cross-border movement presents another challenge to logistics providers.

“If you want to transport cargo by road from one country in Africa to another, it is very complicated,” he said. “The complexity in terms of documentation process. The amount of time it takes to facilitate a simple document of transport between one and two countries is one of the biggest pain points.”

The cross-border issues remain, despite the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) that entered into force in 2019, with trading under the agreement beginning in 2021. The agreement aims to liberalize tariffs on 90% of goods traded between African countries, making intra-African trade easier and more cost-effective.

While 54 out of 55 African Union countries have now signed up for the deal, non-tariff barriers continue to frustrate the free movement of cargo across borders, such as complex customs paperwork, inconsistent customs procedures, and varying domestic regulations. In addition, inadequate transport infrastructure, including road networks, secure parking and rest facilities for drivers, and broader logistics support infrastructure continues to add complexity and cost to cross-border transport operations across the continent.

“If Africa can get this in order, maybe not free borders but simplified processing of land transport, there is nothing that will stop Africa becoming the powerhouse of the future,” Geiken said.

As carriers and forwarders expand their presence across Africa to capture the fast-growing demand, AGL’s Labonne did not believe the next stage of logistics competition in the continent would be determined solely by operator size or acquisition.

"It will depend on the ability to efficiently connect ports with production areas, consumption centers and major regional corridors," he said. "In other words, value creation will increasingly depend on controlling the entire logistics chain, from the quay to the final customer."

This article was originally published by the Journal of Commerce on Aug. 3, 2026.