The giant boxes inside Nigeria’s busiest container port are lined up in neat, ordered rows. The cranes hovering over them gleam with factory-fresh paint. It is the picture of a thriving port, thanks to a $200m investment in the facility APM Terminals, part of Denmark’s AP M?ller-Maersk, since 2006.

But just outside the terminal, housed in the rundown Lagos district of Apapa, a long queue of trucks stretches out from the gate. Drivers complain they have been waiting four or five days, missing sleep and meals, to deliver an empty container and pick up a full one.

The two scenes may seem hard to reconcile, but they are part of the same phenomenon. The new equipment reflects confidence on the part of container terminal operators worldwide – including by APM Terminals and a Chinese operator with a stake in Tin-Can Island Container Terminal near Apapa – in west Africa’s future trade prospects. Global container terminal operators have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Nigeria, Ghana and C?te d’Ivoire, while the main shipping lines that serve the region are receiving new ships tailored to west Africa’s needs.