French line maintains commitment to West Africa traffic

ALTHOUGH several other shipping lines have failed to stay the course, CMA-CGM has maintained its long-standing commitment to shippers on the Durban-West Africa trade, and still provides a full-scale service with three sailings a month on the northbound route. Run as a joint service between CMA-CGM and its subsidiary Delmas Line – which itself has been an historic participant in the Africa sea trade – the Afex service sails a port rotation of Durban-Tema, Ghana-Lagos (calling at both Tincan Island and Atapa terminals), Nigeria; Lome, Toga and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Every second sailing, the service has a northbound call at Lobito in Angola. “We have remained committed to this West African service, which has seen partaking lines coming and going,” said Pam Yerushalmy, GM of CMACGM Shipping Agencies in SA. The bulk of the traffic the Afex service handles Yerushalmy described as “the traditional broad spread of general cargo” which the Durban-West Africa trade generates. “But,” she added, “there’s a great deal of telecommunications equipment going into West Africa at the moment.” The majority of the business is split between Nigeria – the powerhouse of West Africa – and the fast-emerging economy of Ghana. Although trade with Angola is growing, Yerushalmy feels that the calls at Lobito are still limited in their potential.