Namports' Chief Executive Officer says global growth is expected to slow from 6% in 2021 to 3% this year. It is further expected to decline to 2% in 2023.

Kanime says, as a result, rising inflation rates pose a serious risk to the company's future, particularly acute in the US and Europe, where authorities are tightening general financial conditions and fiscal spending in response to the growing need to contain runaway inflation.

In the case of China, he says, this has been aggravated by its zero-tolerance policy for COVID-19, which has seen continued lockdowns.

Therefore, he says, the economies of African countries have generally been on the rebound, thanks to high energy, oil, and coal prices.

With the easing of COVID restrictions and the general recovery in domestic consumption, the developments in the Northern Hemisphere do pose a serious downside risk, he says.

"This does not bode well for the developing world because it essentially means reduced demand for our exports, declining earnings, strained import capacity, slackening industrial production, a decrease in disposal incomes, and specifically for us as the logistics sector, a reduction in business activity and, unfortunately, a real threat to our sustainability."

Despite the world's economic downturn, Namport has more than doubled its revenue, with a 63% increase in operating profit from N$123 million in October last year to N$202 million last month.