An overview on the reform process of African ports

In Africa, the main objective of the port sector is to improve trade competitiveness and to reduce government expenditures. Nevertheless, the reform process in African ports is complex due to some factors, which adversely influence their ability to further develop and affect port efficiency. This paper examines this process and the factors that are slowing it. The first objective is to measure the evolution of port efficiency during the port reform process using a stochastic production frontier. Our results suggest that reforms are producing the first positive results. In fact average efficiency has continuously increased from 2004 to 2007, nevertheless there is still much room to improve port efficiency. The second objective is to estimate what factors affect perceived port quality using an OLS regression. We control by type and size of port, location, GDP and corruption. Overall results show that landlord ports are not only the most efficient ones but also the most valued ones.

► Government policies have enabled private operators to bid for manage African ports.
► We construct a database of African ports characteristics and outputs from 1998 to 2007.
► We estimated African port efficiency, which reaches an average outcome about 30%.
► A growing trend for efficiency is taking place, from 30% in 2000 to 32% in 2007.
► Results show that the most efficient and with highest quality ports are landlord.