It is now day 11 of the voyage and I have entered France after visiting Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. The image is taken as I was approaching Antwerp port. In total these 4 countries are importing and exporting a total of 1.2 million TEU related to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) seen over the past 12 months. That equals more than 3300 TEU every day of the year. But the 4 countries clearly have very different relations with the SSA nations. For the combined imports,

In 2025 the Sub-Saharan region of Africa imported 9.7 million TEU of containerized cargo. By 2050 this could increase to more than 32 million TEU. There are two elements underlying this forward projection. The first one is demographics. The African population is projected to grow from 1.5 Billion now to 2.5 Billion people in 2050. This means one additional billion people who will need food, housing, clothes, furniture etc. Furthermore they will need jobs in growing industries