Sept. 15, 2015—Liberia is seeing a surge in trade as it recovers from an Ebola epidemic that killed thousands and virtually halted economic activity for months, the manager of the country’s sole container terminal said in an interview Tuesday.
The country was declared Ebola-free for a second time by the World Health Organization earlier this month, after a handful of cases were reported in July. Over 11,000 people died of the disease in three West African countries over the course of the outbreak.
Liberia’s economy barely expanded in 2014 and is expected to grow at an anemic rate this year, down from more than 8 percent annual growth before Ebola. Still, container volumes are expected to jump roughly 30 percent this year, to about 100,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, said George Adjei, who manages APM Terminals’ port facility in the capital Monrovia.
Liberia is seeing a rush of imports as construction companies, food sellers and commodities producers stock up on foreign goods they couldn’t obtain during the outbreak, Adjei said. APMT’s facility receives 90 percent of Liberia’s imports, the company says.
To read the full story, please click here.
