Aqaba Container Terminal import container volumes up 13% in Jan-Feb 2020
Aqaba Container Terminal (ACT), the preferred gateway to Jordan and beyond, showed strong resilience in 2019 in the face of challenging local economic context and a strong start in 2020, in line with Jordan’s improving business context, APM Terminals said in its release.
The business improvement is noticeable since the second half of 2019, as indicated by IPSOS Jordan Consumer Confidence Index for the last quarter of 2019 (up 3 points), and ACT volume growth recording 3.4% growth for the period of August to December compared to previous year. The first two months of 2020 have confirmed the trend with a growth in import container volumes of 13% and in export container volumes of 6%.
The terminal’s strategy to promote AQABA as a gateway to Iraq and the wider Levant delivered a sharp increase in containers to Iraq (up 367% compared to previous year), and thus contributed to the positive results recorded for the past few months.
ICRC, the global humanitarian agency for the protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict providing support and emergency relief to Syrian refugees, and Nile Forwarding, the project cargo expert who ships several hundreds of containers into Iraq, both made AQABA their preferred gateway.
The strong drive of Jordan Customs authorities to digitalize essential cargo clearance processes have led to significant improvements in the dwell-time (average number of days that an importer leaves a container at ACT), reducing by a full day in 2019 compared to 2018 and reaching record low levels in January this year‒ down 3.3 days compared January 2017. The new Jordan National Single Window enabled pre-arrival clearance process which in turn allowed customers to clear their containers in as little as 48 to 72 hours after discharge in Jordan, in line with the best international standards.
