Assessing the Efficiency of Ports in India, Seychelles and Mauritius-A Non Parametric Approach

Abstract

The evaluation of port productivity leads to port improvement. The critical positioning of ports requires it to continuously improve since ports are pivotal to the health of a nation’s economy. This paper examines the trend in the productivity of selected Africa and South Asian Ports for the period of 2018-2022, using the Malmquist based Data Envelopment Analysis. The review of literature lays further credence to the importance of this paper as there has been a paucity of articles on the efficiency level of these selected Indian Ocean Ports that spans two continents, Africa, and South Asia. Hence, this paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge on the efficiency analysis of ports using Data Envelopment Analysis based Malmquist Productivity Index. Evaluation of port performance contributes to effective policy planning, port improvement and port competitiveness. The result of the research shows that 50% of the port experienced decline in port productivity during the eight years of examination. 30% of the ports showed improvement in productivity and 20% was stagnant in terms of productivity. Indeed the pandemic affected all the selected ports and 66% of the port examined are on the path to full recovery in terms of productivity