Within Europe, several Mediterranean ports have increased their connectivity to the global liner shipping networks significantly since before the pandemic whereas North Europe is lagging behind.

The United Nations Trade Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) publishes a quarterly dataset where they measure how well connected every container port in the world is. 

This is measured as a combination of a range of parameters including the number of services, the number of service providers and the size of the ships.

16 out of the 50 most well connected ports in the world are located in Europe, hereof seven in North Europe and nine in the Mediterranean. Across the 50 ports globally, the average connectivity has increased 18% since 2019. 

This means, on average, that each port is significantly better connected to the world that it was before the pandemic.

For the nine Mediterranean ports, the average increase in connectivity has been 28%, creating a significant improvement for importers and exporters in the region. This is especially driven by improvements seen in Spain (Valencia and Barcelona), Italy (Genoa, Gioia Tauro and La Spezia), France (Fos) and Portugal (Sines). 

The last two ports – Piraeus and Algeciras – only show an improvement of 6% and hence are getting relatively worse positioned versus the global average as well as versus their competing ports in the region.

In North Europe the improvement is a low 5% compared to pre-pandemic on average. 

This means that seen in the context of the 50 most well-connected ports in the world, importers and exporters in North Europe is relatively speaking getting reduced level of competitiveness. 

Rotterdam and Bremerhaven even shows a decline in connectivity compared to 2019. The two ports with the largest improvement is Le Havre and Southampton at a 15% improvement each – but this is still below the average for the top-50 most well connected ports globally. 

The Port of Hamburg, a big center of attention recently, has just seen a marginal increase of 3% on their connectivity compared to 2019.

Expanding the ports to look at the 50 ports beyond the top-50, the North European ports continue to show a very low degree of connectivity improvements and the ports of Gdansk and Aarhus are now seeing a lower measure of connectivity than they did before the pandemic.

It should be noted that there are of course many different ways in which connectivity can be measured. The one used by UNCTAD is merely the one which has the longest track record, allowing comparisons over time. 

Using different methodologies can extract slightly different nuances, but is unlikely to change the big picture.

This development is important not just from an academic perspective. 

A high degree of connectivity makes a port increasingly attractive for exporters and importers – it is simply easier to reach more locations, and this in turn drives supply chain costs down. 

Every port will exhibit fluctuations and these are of minor consequence. But what we are seeing here appears to be the beginning of a trend where Mediterranean ports are gaining an advantage – or catching up, depending on the port – compared to North European ports. 

This is especially interesting for customers in Central Europe, and may lead to a gradual shift of some of the cargo here, increasingly favoring a Mediterranean routing.