Five-fold surge in container prices fuels Mauritius inflation

Mauritius inflation accelerated for a sixth month to 10.7% in March as the island economy grapples with rising costs to ship goods from distant suppliers.

“Due to the bottleneck in ports triggered by the pandemic, the cost of moving a container of goods from China to Mauritius has risen five-fold, from $1,300 in January 2020 to $7,500 in February,” Neerish Chooramun, communications manager at transportation and logistics company Velogic Holding Co. Ltd., said in an emailed response to questions. “In rupee terms, it’s almost seven-fold.”

The main suppliers for the Indian Ocean island nation are China and India. The value of imports from the two countries amounted to 71.7 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) last year, a third of the total cost. Total import bills soared 30% to 215 billion rupees in 2021 from a year earlier, according to Statistics Mauritius.

“Mauritius is a small island economy and a net importer of food, manufactured goods, fuels and equipments,” said Bhavish Jugurnath, an independent economist. “Shipping costs is a major driver of inflation in the country, as we have been witnessing over the past months.”

Adding to freight costs is a weaker rupee, which was near a record low against the dollar on Thursday.