MSC South Africa chairman Salvatore Sarno has witnessed vast changes in the shipping industry over the past 50 years but by far the biggest evolution has been on the high seas, while the landside of port operations has just not kept pace with the mammoth changes in vessel sizes.“The biggest changes have been on the sea side because the ships have become giant. If you think that in the old days the big white vessels of Safmarine were just 1500 TEUs and now there are vessels of 24 000 TEUs – it’s a big difference, it’s amazing. We could not have anticipated something so huge, it’s not big, it’s massive, giantism,” Sarno says.“And that is bad, because while shipping on the sea side has changed in that way, on the land side, development has not moved with the same speed,” Sarno adds.Sarno is based in MSC Durban’s head office, in walking distance of one of the main entrances to Durban Port, which is struggling to handle larger vessels and their massive amounts of cargo. “The Port of Durban has not developed to accommodate these kinds of vessels but it’s not only here. Most of the world’s ports have not grown at the same speed as the changes on the sea side. The container terminals and the logistics sector service after the terminal have not kept pace,” Sarno says.“Today there is congestion in most of the biggest ports in the world with a little exception maybe in Asia, but why? It’s because these giant vessels move 15 000 containers and then even where there are some terminals that can discharge without any problem, the containers are then stuck in the port because there is not enough land transport – trains and trucks – to quickly get these containers out,” he says.“So, the result is the space in the terminal is fully occupied by containers that have been discharged but can’t move out quickly enough to free stacking space for the other vessels that are arriving, which leads to there sometimes being 10 to 15 ships waiting outside.”However, Sarno laments that the inefficiencies at the Port of Durban are at the maximum level not only due to the big ships but because “there is not enough equipment in the terminal on the landside and quayside”.“There are sometimes hundreds of trucks congested outside the entrance to the port because once the trucks are inside there is not enough equipment to discharge or load the trucks. Logistics owners are on their knees and can sometimes only transport one container a day because they are waiting up to 11 hours at the port,” he says.Sarno does not believe the solution to the congestion at local ports lies in the semi-privatisation of port operations, a move Transnet recently embarked on, releasing a list of ten contenders for private-sector participation, including MSC, which runs 100 terminals globally.“Transnet looks at semi-privatisation like a magic stick, but the tender process will take two to three years, so in meantime they must do something and buy new equipment and not leave the situation to deteriorate day by day,” Sarno says.Apart from port congestion, he adds that the biggest challenge facing shipping is the need to diversify due to f luctuating global rates.“There is far more money to be made on the landside than on the ship side, so the future is on the landside, and that’s something I already said 25 years ago. Shipping lines must develop to get into providing a full transport service including rail and trucking, although freight forwarders will still have their role. Look at MSC, we are diversifying, buying into Mediclinic and we are going into airfreight with the launch of our brand-new airfreight division,” Sarno adds
