The data, made available this Friday to the Lusa agency by the company, show that in the first half of 2019, the Port of Luanda recorded a general production - containerized, break bulk, liquid and solid - of 3,668,865.13 tonnes, while in the same period this year, production reached 3,036,048.05 tonnes.
"This means that, in comparative terms, we saw a decrease of 632,817.08 tonnes, corresponding to 17 percent," the information states.
According to the company, port productivity began to fall in January, but by February 2020 it had surpassed the level achieved in the previous year, as a result of the 4 per cent economic growth the country achieved at the time.
"Assuming, reasonably, that this result could mean the starting point, i.e. that from then on the national economy would be upward, it was therefore entirely expected that the productivity of our company in the first half of this year would follow the same direction, leaving behind the figures achieved in 2019," the company says.
This expectation was affected by the registration of the pandemic of the new coronavirus, both globally and domestically, which imposed a decrease in imports and exports of various products that regularly demand the Port of Luanda.
The drop in port production was more pronounced in the months between April and June, when there was a drop of 40 percent (-280,676.77) and 24 percent (-153,775.80), respectively.
In 2019, the general production of the Port of Luanda, a public company, reached 7,141,646.67 tonnes, 60,653.79 (1 percent) more than 2018.
