Countries in Southern Africa are undertaking major expansion or constructing completely new ultra-modern ports to accommodate the growing global trade using waterways.

Transnert Port Terminals Chief Executive Officer, Karl Socikwa named Kenya’s 5.3bn US dollars Lamu port and the country’s 11bn US dollars Bagamoyo port as leading projects in the region so far.

Mr Socikwa said in his latest paper on “Ports Industry and Infrastructure Development in Africa” that growing volumes of cargo at all African ports has forced port authorities and operators to increase capacity, analyse operations to increase efficiency, and employ measures to allow bigger ships into their ports.

“The East Africa region has various projects underway. The new Lamu Port in Kenya costing $5.3 billion and the Bagamoyo port in Tanzania costing $11 billion are examples of countries preparing for the ever growing port capacity needs,” Mr Socikwa said.

He further noted that reconfiguring port layout, and increasing berths at existing ports and conducting dredging more often, have been other strategies that numerous ports have employed to meet this need.

“The Port of Maputo will be undertaking dredging to increase its channel depth from 11 metres to 14 metres this year to allow larger vessels entry.

Tanzania will invest $523 million for new berths 13 and 14 to more than double its container capacity at Dar es Salaam Port,” the Transnert Port Terminals CEO from South Africa revealed.

Meanwhile, organizers of the first annual Port Expansion East Africa, Infrastructure IQ are calling on participants to register for the conference which will be held in Dar es Salaam next September.

Source: Tanzania Daily News

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