IMPROVEMENTS at the Dar es Salaam Port have enabled Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) to host MSC Martina, one of the largest container vessels, to dock at the country’s major port.

TPA Acting Director General, Madeni Kipande said in Dar es Salaam that the Mediterranean Shipping Company’s container vessel with an overall length of 244 metres and width of 32.2 metres and carrying capacity of 2,411 containers docked without any problem.

“The arrival of such large vessels is a major achievement to be recorded by the Tanzania Ports Authority,” noted the TPA boss. Eng Kipande explained that the MSC Martina is one of the largest container ships owned by the Geneva-based Italian Company to dock and offload consignment at the port.

The largest ship to be accommodated by the Port was Maersk Cubango with an overall length of 250 metres and width of 38 metres with capacity to carry 4,500 containers owned by the Maersk Line.

The vessel captain, Abdulah Mwingamno, pointed out that the use of state-of-the-art technology used by the port has improved operations at the Dar es Salaam Port, thus easy to accommodate largest ships.

“We hope to receive large ships with length of 260 metres in March and April this year,” he said. MSC Country Representative, Mr Ahmed Kamal, said since MSC owns large ships, the company plans to bring more huge ships to dock at the port.

“This is our largest ever ship to dock at the Dar es Salaam Port. We plan to bring more large ships to the country,” he said.

TPA recently announced decline of theft following stern measures taken by TPA, saying only three cases were reported in 2014 while four cases were reported in 2013.

The Dar es Salaam Port serves over 160 million customers in the country and seven landlocked countries namely Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Source: All Africa

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