COMCEC Transport and Communications
Outlook 2019
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2014, a 24% stake in CMA-CGM, the 3rd largest container shipping line. At the same time,
container liners in some OIC countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia are more focused on
domestic and regional trade, while other OIC countries still retain high public stakes in national
shipping companies.” (COMCEC, 2015)
Table 8: Major container shipping companies in the OIC countries
Country Operator Global rank TEU Ships
UAE UASC 18 338,872 53
Iran HDS Lines 23 88,608 22
Turkey Arkas Line / EMES 28 54,753 37
UAE OEL / Shreyas (Transworld Group) 41 31,072 22
Indonesia Salam Pacific 44 29,020 45
UAE Meratus 45 28,789 49
Indonesia Tanto Intim Line 46 27,310 47
UAE Emirates Shipping Line 54 20,917 6
Turkey Turkon Line 61 13,568 8
Indonesia Temas Line 62 13,442 23
Malaysia MTT Shipping 79 7,918 7
Qatar Qatar Navigation (Milaha) 88 6,651 8
Indonesia Caraka Tirta Perkasa 93 6,103 9
Algeria CNAN 96 5,316 9
Source: COMCEC (2015) from Alphaliner (2015)
Ports are critical logistics infrastructure facilities and play a key role in the international trade.
There are over 200 OIC ports that serve as either gateway or transhipment facilities, and
sometimes as transit points to other landlocked OIC countries. Ports are of critical importance
for integration of the OIC countries into global markets as well as among themselves given that
some OIC countries have smaller economies located in remote locations. Indeed, some OIC ports
have a strategic importance for global trade due to their positions on the international maritime
routes or services to large hinterland markets. However, there are also many OIC countries that
are landlocked, i.e. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic,
Mali, Niger, Tajikistan, Uganda, and Uzbekistan; while some others that are Small Island
Developing States (SIDS), i.e. Comoros, the Maldives, and Suriname.
The container throughput of the OIC countries has reached 119 million TEU in 2017 up from
85.2million TEU in 2010. However, the share of OIC countries in the global container throughput
has remained flat at around 15% in the 2010-2017 period. Both Malaysia and the UAE show high
volume throughput with 24.7 million TEU and 21.3 million TEU, respectively. On the other hand,
majority of the OIC countries couldn’t even reach the one million TEU threshold. In the Maldives,
Mauritania, Albania, and Brunei, very low container throughput volumes reflect the small size
of the port sector in those countries.