The maritime trade landscape in the South Atlantic is undergoing an accelerated restructuring. The expansion of the container market in sub-Saharan Africa—which grew from 19.2 million TEUs in 2010 to 34.9 million in 2022, an increase of 57%, and is projected to rise from a value of $7.46 billion in 2025 to $9.79 billion in 2030, at an annual growth rate of 5.5%—is triggering a wave of strategic alliances between shipping lines and operators.
For the World Economic Forum in Davos, the expansion of capacity in West Africa is likely to be rewarded with an increase in cargo volumes. However, competition among ports is intensifying. Tema, Abidjan and Dakar are competing for the same cargo. “The winners will be those that offer reliable service, transparent processes and competitive prices.” With a right-wing dockworkers’ establishment taking home at least €8,800 net per month, there is nothing to be done.
This redistribution of flows directly challenges the historic role of the Canary Islands—and of its hub port in Las Palmas—as the main transshipment and inspection platform for goods bound for the African continent.
Multimillion-dollar alliances and concessions
Major global corporations such as MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, DP World and AD Ports are signing long-term agreements to control key infrastructure along Africa’s western coast. The recent agreement between Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd and DP World to secure capacity in Dakar, Senegal, Luanda, Angola, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, seeks to support the German shipping line’s goal of transporting more than one million TEUs on the continent by 2026, while also expanding its interest in projects in Banana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Maputo, Mozambique.
This operation is joined by the 45-year sub-concession signed by MSC and Nigerdock in Nigeria to operate a 30-hectare terminal on Snake Island in Lagos, as well as the 30-year concession awarded to AD Ports and CMA CGM, through CMA Terminals, in Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo.
Vertical integration reached its biggest milestone with MSC’s acquisition of Bolloré Africa Logistics for an enterprise value of €5.7 billion, approximately $6.5 billion, directly integrating the continental logistics network under the Africa Global Logistics, or AGL, brand. The move is aligned with the strategy of other giants operating across multiple links in the sector, such as Maersk through APM Terminals; MSC through Terminal Investment Limited, or TiL, which owns Opcsa at the Port of Las Palmas; CMA CGM through CEVA Logistics; COSCO Shipping; and the Emirati group AD Ports.
The challenge for the Canary Islands hub
The deployment of capital in West African ports is altering the Canary Islands’ operating equation. Historically, the lack of draft and the limited handling capacity of neighboring terminals made the ports of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife mandatory points for regional storage and redistribution. As African terminals gain technical scale through multimillion-dollar investments, direct links between major production centers and sub-Saharan Africa are becoming increasingly efficient. For the Canary Islands’ economy, the immediate risk is the gradual erosion of transshipment volumes and the loss of frequency on intercontinental routes.
Pressure on ancillary services
The impact extends beyond container traffic. The Port of Las Palmas’ business model rests on a dense network of vessel services, from fuel supply, or bunkering, to ship repair and provisioning. The strengthening of African port hubs integrated by top-tier operators threatens to divert some of these services to the continental coast itself. If major alliances secure the extended berthing and maintenance of their fleets at concessioned infrastructure in Dakar or Luanda, demand for ancillary services in island waters will suffer a structural slowdown.
Scale and sovereignty tensions
The current process presents local economies with the challenge of retaining value in the face of major international conglomerates. Despite the strength of regional firms such as Marsa Maroc and South Africa’s Transnet, the capital gap favors global players. At the same time, smaller state-owned fleets—including Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics, Egypt’s National Navigation Company, Algeria’s CNAN, Tunisia’s CTN, Tanzania’s Shipping Company and Angola’s Secil Marítima—are seeking to maintain their market share in the face of multinational expansion. Strategies such as Morocco’s plan to build a national fleet of 100 vessels by 2040 and Nigeria’s Coastal Shipping Vessel Finance Fund aim to counter this external dependence.
For the Canary Islands, the new scenario requires an accelerated review of its competitive advantages. Its status as a territory of the European Union, legal certainty and the incentives provided by the Economic and Tax Regime, or REF, remain significant assets, but they are losing traction unless complemented by greater operational competitiveness against increasingly modern and connected African ports. The way forward would be to liberalize the workforce and fully automate terminals.
The article “What the Davos Forum Already Knows About the Decline of Las Palmas’ Port Model in Africa” was first published on canarymaritime.com.
