Italian ports guide the country towards international markets, in a scenario where the global maritime trade it is destined to grow and Asia to be the protagonist. This is what emerges from 2023 Report "Italian Maritime Economy"of SRM – Study Center linked to the Intesa Sanpaolo Group – entitled “Ports, shipping and logistics at the center of the new Mediterranean scenarios: 10 years of analyses, data and reflections on the competitiveness of the sector and on Italy's role”.
“This year's Report – he declared Massimo Deandreis, general manager of Srm – reports long-term analyzes and numbers on ports, shipping and logistics, sectors that are driving the world, European and country economy, as evidenced by two numbers above all: Italian companies export and import with ships account for 40% of their production, the added value of the maritime economy in our country exceeds 50 billion euros. A sector that in the South finds an expression of excellence in the port and shipping sectors. The new challenges of the sustainability of digitization and alternative fuels are advancing impetuously and we must be ready to maintain and increase our competitiveness".
Global maritime trade
Rosy is the future of global maritime trade: it will increase by 1,8% in 2023, reaching 12,2 billion tons and then grow again by 3,1% in 2024. It is worth about 12% of global GDP. And the trend is also positive for Italy, where about 40% of import-export trade takes place by sea, for 377 billion euros at the end of 2022, with an increase of 66% over the decade.
THEAsia remains the undisputed player both in the container segment and in the shipping sector in general: of the top 20 container ports in the world, which in 2022 handled 383 million teu (44% of the world total), 8 are Chinese and another 6 are Asian. While I freight rates they are back almost in line with pre-Covid values. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), after breaking through the historical peak of 5.000 points in January 2022, fell below the 1.000 mark in June 2023.
The car carrier sector and the regionalization of routes
In full recovery the sector of car carrier ships (automotive market proxy). World trade in motor vehicles by sea will grow by 8% in 2023 (+3% on 2019). There are 2022 car carriers ordered in 90 against 38 in 2021.
The segment Containers. The top 10 carriers in the world have a market share of 84% (in 2012 this share was 64%); the first 4 control more than half of the global container transport capacity: 58%.
The regionalization of routes. The growth in the first half of 2023 of the intra-regional routes of 5,6% compared to the same period of 2022, compared to the reduction of the deep-sea East-West routes of 3%, confirms the trend of regionalization of shipping.
Mediterranean is increasingly central. Alternative fuels are advancing
The report also highlights that the Mediterranean is increasingly central with the push of Suez: over 23.400 ships transited in 2022, and revenues for Egypt amounted to 8 billion dollars (+ 25% compared to 2021). Suez is also an important chokepoint in the food trade: 14,6% of world cereal imports and 14,5% of world fertilizer imports pass through it.
47,7% of all orders in shipyards (in terms of GT) in July 2023 are for vessels using alternative fuels (in 2017 this share was only 10,7%). LNG ships represent 39%; those with methanol 5,4%.
Italian maritime trade
I Italian ports (Italy mainly imports by sea from China and exports above all to the USA, particularly in the machinery, refined, chemical products and means of transport sectors) "they lead the country towards international markets": in 2022 they handled over 490 million tons of goods, an increase of 1,9% on 2021. The ten-year increase was about 7%.
Ro-ro drives growth in the South
From 2019 onwards we are witnessing the overtaking of Ro-Ro segment (grown by about 55% since 2013) on containers, a sector - the latter - in any case in good health with 11,6 million containers (TEU) handled in 2022 and growth of 15% over the decade, but below of the best Euro-Mediterranean competitors. The South has an important presence in the Ro-Ro sector and in the Motorways of the Sea (it accounts for 2022% of the total Italy in 51), a sector which has played and is still playing a key role in the development of the territory as a means of transmission of a proximity trade and transport of heavy vehicles removed from the road.
The new challenge of Italian ports, according to the report, is to become - thanks to the push towards the ecological transition and the use of alternative sources - real "energy hubs" for the storage and/or production of LNG, biofuels , hydrogen.
Energy hub ports
It is estimated 5 years to make Italy the Mediterranean gas bridge through 7 regasifiers near the ports and 5 gas pipelines from the south aimed at transporting approximately 50 billion cubic meters of LNG and up to 90 billion of gas (at full capacity) for a total of 140 billion. In this context, the ports of the South are confirmed as "strategic levers for the growth of the territory", with a contribution to freight traffic of 46% (in 2022, unchanged compared to 2013) equal to 226 million tons.
Import-export by sea in the South
In 2022 it reached 84,4 billion euros with a leap of 41% on the previous year. A performance even higher than Italy (37,6%). The data for 2022 then mark "a confirmation of the southern airports" always present among the first places in the standings in the various types of goods. The ports of Noonlastly, they play a key role in the “Energy” sector (crude and refined oil), representing 48% of the country's supplies and oil exports by sea and being the terminal of important pipelines from North Africa and Asia.
