As per a recent statement by Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for African Affairs Florie Liser “Trade is significantly important for economic development. At present, Africa has approximately 2% of all world trade, which is hard to believe when you think about all the immense resources that they have such as oil, diamonds, gold … not to mention all the agricultural products like coffee, tea, cocoa – and to think that Africa still only has 2% of world trade is unbelievable. But the influence of trade is that if the Africans were able to raise their share of world trade from 2% to 3%, that 1% increase would generate about $70 billion of additional income annually for Africa,”.
Economic principle often refers to ports as key factors for economic development, specifically from a historical viewpoint where they functioned as promoters of trade and the welfare of countries. It is not surprising to understand that most of the world’s major cities are port cities, even though, in most cases, port activity these days plays a relatively small role in the general economic structure of their regions.
Ports are deemed to be the “funnels” for economic development because they work as catalysts and stimulate development in certain economic sectors and locations near ports or along corridors. The economic benefits of ports can be classified as direct, indirect, and induced. Indirect and induced benefits cannot be identified clearly. It is difficult to determine that an economic activity and use of the related reserves would only occur due to the port investment. When a port investment does lead to enhanced economic activity, the benefit is accurately measured by the net value of the additional output. The direct benefits to the port are financial in nature and would be considered in any financial profit in addition to economic appraisals.
Shipping companies depend on a terminal’s assured productivity; they need their vessels turned swiftly to manage schedules, maximize slow steaming to reduce costs and to have vessel resources used as efficiently as possible. Logstar cloud based terminal Operating system helps terminals achieve this with its customizable and multi-site capabilities.
LogStar transforms the way multi-purpose ports, terminals and multi-modal depots optimize their operational cargo flows, eliminate inefficient processes and boost business performance of all their stakeholders.