The announcement came that the State-owned Visakhapatnam Port had made it to the top 20 rankings in the Container Port Performance Index 2023 (CPPI 2023), a measure devised by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence. It was disclosed that Visakhapatnam Port had secured the 19th position in the Index, surpassing Mundra Port, which was placed at 27 and managed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ).
The Index, which evaluates performance based on vessel time in port, was described as a comparative assessment. It was stated that Visakha Container Terminal, a wholly owned subsidiary of J M Baxi Ports & Logistics, operated a terminal with a capacity of 1.35 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) at Visakhapatnam Port on the eastern coast of the country.
The CPPI, which assessed 405 global container ports for efficiency by focusing on the duration of port stay for container vessels, aimed primarily to pinpoint areas for improvement beneficial to various stakeholders in the global trading system and supply chains, including ports, shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. It was noted that the Index encompassed ports with a minimum of 24 valid port calls within a 12-month period.
The fourth edition of CPPI, based on an extensive dataset comprising over 182,000 vessel calls, 238.2 million moves, and approximately 381 million twenty-foot equivalents (TEUs) for the entire calendar year of 2023, was highlighted. Emphasis was placed on the importance of ports' resilience, efficiency, and overall performance in facilitating global markets and economic development, as stated by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence.
It was reported that China's Yangshan Port retained the top position for the second consecutive year, with Oman's Port of Salalah maintaining the second spot. In the CPPI categorized by region (West, Central, and South Asia), Visakhapatnam was positioned 18th, while Mundra stood at 22.
Furthermore, Mundra was placed 22nd in the CPPI based on throughput in the large ports category (handling more than 4 million TEUs a year), with the state-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Port ranked at 90.