The Tema and Takoradi Ports recorded 21.5 million tonnes of maritime trade from January to December 2013.

The Port of Tema handled more than 77 per cent of the total trade, which amounted to about 16.7 million tonnes while the Port of Takoradi dealt with the remaining 23 per cent amounting to 4.4 million tonnes.

This was made known in the January-March 2014 Shipping Review of the Ghana Shippers Authority. The total figure showed an increase of 10.7 per cent over the 19,489,731 tonnes handled by the two ports in 2012.

Total imports for 2013 was 16,568,206 which showed a 10.4 per cent increment over the 15,007,713 obtained in 2012. There was an increase of 11.7 per cent of total export from 4,482,018 tonnes in 2012 to 5,008,600 tonnes in 2013.

According to the review, the total import trade recorded in 2013 comprised 6.6 million tonnes of Liner items, 3.3 million tonnes of Break Bulk, 3.6 million tonnes of Dry Bulk items and 2.9 million tonnes of Liquid Bulk items.

The liner import trade was made up of items such as processed foods, chemicals, tiles, frozen meat and food, machinery and equipment, polythene raw materials and bagged rice. Under the Dry Bulk import category, clinker recorded the highest of about 1.77 million tonnes followed by 775,514 cement import, and 600,449 of bulk wheat.

Most items under the Liquid Bulk import trade saw decreases in the quantities imported during the period under review compared to that of 2012. The review indicated that petroleum products decreased by 15 per cent and bitumen by 95 per cent. However, liquefied petroleum gas saw an increase of 25 per cent.

It stated that majority of the maritime import for 2013 came from the Far East, Africa, North Continent, the Mediterranean, and other ranges.

On the performance of the shipping agents in the maritime trade for the 2013 period, a total of 54 shipping agents took part in the liner trade with Maersk Ghana Limited handling 1.78 million tonnes representing 8.3 per cent of the liner throughput.

Nineteen shipping agents also handled the dry bulk cargo, while 45 and 17 agents accounted for break bulk trade, and liquid bulk trade for the 2013 year maritime trade.