Examining port selection factors in Sub-Saharan Africa using the modified importance-performance analysis

As a growing volume of international shipments are carried by ocean carriers and handled by ports worldwide, ports have been at the heart of international trade and serve as a key node in global supply chain activities. Since many competing ports worldwide vie to be the first choice for shippers’ global supply chains, they offer various maritime logistics services and pricing options. As such, selecting the right seaport has become an arduous task. In this regard, Sub-Saharan seaport selection is no exception. Considering a lack of attention paid to the rapidly developing African ports that can be an accelerator for business opportunities in the emerging Sub-Saharan African market, this paper investigates how African shippers select ports and examines to see if there is any significant difference in African shippers’ port selection behavior due to their varying priorities among different countries. We use the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPMA), for an empirical analysis of shippers in Uganda and Nigeria. We find many cross-national differences between the two countries in their port selection strategies. In particular, we discover that African shippers’ geographical proximity to the coastal area influences their port selection decision. Also, our importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) revealed that African shippers consider cargo safety, port security, and port service quality the most crucial factors in their port selection. On the other hand, we found that Chinese shippers using the African ports valued port connectivity via multi-modal transfer links more than their African counterparts. In other words, domestic African shippers tended to have different priorities in selecting African ports from foreign Chinese shippers.