Steve Agbota, [email protected] 08033302331
The Nigerian maritime industry may be facing its greatest challenge in history as the Coronavirus pandemic is threatening to throw it into deeper crisis.
A new UNCTAD analysis has predicted that “COVID-19” shock could cause a recession in some countries and depress global annual growth this year to below 2.5 per cent, the recessionary threshold for the world economy.
Apart from Covid-19 being a global economy challenge, the deadly disease has alsohad significant negative effects on almost of the sectors of the world economy. Companies, schools, shipping lines, terminal operators and other businesses are shutting down in order to prevent the spread of the disease.
Already, the deadly disease has began to take its toll on the Nigeria’s maritime sector, as export and import going out and or coming into Nigeria have declined significantly. One of its downside effect is that the outbreak of the virus has impaired the concessioning of Onitsha River Port and ongoing work on the rail system that links to the port for cargo evacuation. Government agencies at the port including the Nigerian Shippers Council and Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have partially closed their offices while others are planning to follow suit.
Similarly, seven of the world’s 10 largest container ports in China and Hong Kong as well as some of the world’s largest container shipping lines, like the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), AP Moller Maersk, CMA-CGM and Hong Kong’s own OOCL, have all cancelled their cargo routes from Asia to Europe and North America in recent weeks. The world’s second-largest economy, China accounted for 14 per cent of all containerised cargo exports last year, 23 per cent of seaborne crude oil, 35 per cent of dry bulk shipped, 18 per cent of liquefied gas and 72 per cent of all seaborne iron ore. That has taken a drastic turn, as the Coronavirus outbreak gathered pace in February.
Crude oil tankers have stopped sailing for China since the start of the month, compared with 3.42 billion ton-miles every day on average last year, according to satellite data provided by Vessels Value.
The development also has an effect on the Nigerian ports system with fewer vessels coming into the ports from the Asian country. For the fear of contacting the virus, Daily Sun learnt that Nigerian importers no longer travel to China to buy goods while those already there before the outbreak are currently stuck because airlines are also canceling flights from China due to rejection in destination airports. The situation will affect Nigerian maritime sector seriously because close to 50 percent of imports into Nigeria especially machineries, raw materials and finished products come from China and other Far East Asian countries.
Again, it has been predicted that Nigerian port industry in the second quarter of the year, would suffer decline in ship traffic and a drop in the volume of imports coming into the country and exports originating from Nigeria to other countries.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) third quarter report, this would be largely due to the aftermath of Coronavirus outbreak in China, United States of America, and India, which happens to be Nigeria’s major trading partners with 31.34 per cent, 11.35 per cent and 7.49 per cent of the nation’s total imports coming from these countries.
However, experts in the Nigerian maritime sector said that Nigeria would be losing about N1billion daily to the outbreak of the Coronavirus as the level of imports arriving Nigerian ports is gradually dropping while port calls to China are becoming less frequent while shipping lines risk $1.7 billion revenue loss.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the President of Shippers’ Association of Lagos State, Jonathan Nicol, said the Coronavirus is not limited to one country, but affecting all the countries, adding that trade will be very low while there would be complete lockdown, which is already beginning to affect Nigeria as well.
According to him, the outbreak of the virus will not only affect number of ship calls into Nigerian ports but also volume of import goods coming into the country. On importers cargoes, stranded in Asian countries, he said that there is nothing anybody can do now to help them because Coronavirus is a global thing.
According to him, shipping companies, terminals are closing down and countries are shutting down, while complete lockdown in Britain and America is about to follow and importers should take heart.
Nicol urged Federal Government to follow what other countries are doing to protect their ports from Coronavirus so as not to allow the country to be littered with so many diseases that it cannot control. He said Federal Government should be careful with the way it handles the situation so that they won’t just bring in vessels that will bring Coronavirus into the country through seaports.
He added: “We don’t have any facility to contain major disaster like that. Now that this is happening, let’s just do the needful until the danger spot is over.”
Also speaking, the National President, Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Lucky Amiwero said that the Coronavirus will have serious impact on the nation’s ports revenue, adding that in the next two months, there is going to be a drastic drop in revenue.
According to him, Nigeria Customs and other government generating revenue agencies should not be looking at revenue for now, they should be looking at security and how people can be safe that is what is happening all over the world.
He added: “When you see countries closing and shutting down, you must understand what is happening. It means nobody can go into that country and most of those countries are countries that actually have their import.
“50 or 60 per cent import come through China to Nigeria. As at now, that means nobody can go into China. We have consignments coming from Italy and many other countries and many of these countries have lockdown that means nobody can access them for now.” He said the countries are trying to see how they can quarantine their system for their countries to be save from epidemic. He said: “When a country like Italy is closing down and America is trying to close its border. Even Benin Republic shut their border and people traveling from Nigeria are stranded and many other countries have closed down.
“No country is talking about revenue today but security. Customs should forget about revenue for now. I’m surprised that they are still using an old system. It is 1947 old system. There is no seminar you go today, they will talk about revenue, what they talk about is security. I think Customs should try to modernised. If your country is not secured, your revenue is useless.”
Also speaking on sensitising the port users, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) General Manager and Strategic Communications, Jato Adams, said NPA held a sensitisation program recently at Apapa where letters were sent to all the stakeholders, adding that NPA has been providing hand sanitisers across the ports. He said that terminal operators should be able to augment whatever NPA is doing in the area of sensitisation and provision of hand sanitizers and other preventive materials for their workers.