African governments have been challenged to identify unique opportunities which they can pursue for growth of their ports instead of engaging in duplicate expansion projects that do not add value to their competitiveness and growth.
Speaking during the African Ports Expansion Conference in Mombasa, leading world port and maritime sector managers said that many of the ports were duplicating what others were doing instead of trying to curve a niche for themselves so as to remain relevant.
Tessa Major, a representative of the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, said by working together African countries can supplement each other instead acting as competitors so as to ensure growth in their maritime industry.
She noted that many African countries had embarked on huge expansion projects of their ports so as to keep up with the increase in cargo volumes without focusing on future trends of the shipping industry.
The conference brought together major stakeholders in the maritime industry including government officials, port authorities, contractors, technology providers, suppliers of port equipment and consultants.
“When you look at majority of the expansion projects in African ports, most of them are similar. When we were expanding our Port in Antwerp, our biggest competitor was the port of Rotterdam in Netherlands but we realised the Port of Rotterdam deals more in liquid cargo,” said Tessa.
The port of Antwerp is the second largest port in Europe after the Rotterdam port in the Netherlands which handles approximately 200 million tonnes of cargo in an year.
Her remarks come just as the race for construction of the largest port in East Africa begins with Tanzania expected to begin construction of the Bangamoyo port and Kenya beginning the construction of the first three berths of the Lamu port; which is expected to ease cargo delays at the port of Mombasa. The conference brought together more than 50 delegates from different countries among them Belgium, South Africa , India and Tanzania.
Source: Media Max

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