Thursday, July 2, 2015

New ports and container terminals make Kenya the region’s trading hub

Opinion and Analysis
Containers at the port of Mombasa. Expansion of the port and new terminals will improve regional trade. PHOTO | FILE
Containers at the port of Mombasa. Expansion of the port and new terminals will improve regional trade. PHOTO | FILE 
By GILBERT LANGAT
In Summary
  • Expansion of the Mombasa port is set to improve flow of imports and exports within East Africa.

Mombasa is Kenya’s biggest and most important seaport, located in what is known as the Northern Corridor, offering an essential international maritime linkage for Kenya and the land-locked East and Central African countries of Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo.
Imports and exports to and from the five countries of the Northern Corridor go through the port of Mombasa before being transported by road or railway over Uganda to Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC. 
Goods to and from South Sudan are also transported through the same route from Mombasa before branching off northwards. The corridor also serves parts of northern Tanzania. 
Currently, the Mombasa port on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline has 19 functional berths with a capacity to handle over one million TEUs and two new container berths with a 1.2 million TEUs capacity. 
Over the past few years, the container traffic has been growing at an average rate of 11 per cent per annum.  
In 2014, the number of vessels calling at the port increased by 3.6 per cent from 1,768 to 1,832, total imports handled rose by 8.3 per cent from 19.2 million tonnes to 20.8 million tonnes, total exports increased by 12.8 per cent to 3.4 million tonnes, and bulk liquid grew by 10.8 per cent from 6.5 million cubic meters to 7.2 million cubic meters. 
Transit traffic to the landlocked countries increased by 4.2 per cent from 6.9 million tonnes to 7.2 million tonnes, while liquid pipeline throughput expanded by 7.7 per cent from 5.2 million cubic meters to 5.6 million cubic meters and motor vehicle imports grew by 15.3 per cent from 136,815 units to 157,856 units, according to figures from the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA).
Business leaders who gather in Nairobi for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES2015) will see these statistics as encouraging, as they point to a vibrant port growing in volumes and efficiency.
In efforts to further expand the Mombasa port, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) recently shortlisted 12 firms to bid for the tender to run the second container terminal at the port and accelerated the deadline to commission the facility from March 2016 to November this year. 
The companies chosen include APM Terminals, DP World, China Merchant Holdings, and Cosco Pacific as well as several consortia. Joint venture bids include Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Grup TCB as well as S.L. Mitsubishi Corporation and Freight Forwarders Kenya.
The first phase of construction at the new terminal is already 75 per cent complete and is now expected to be commissioned later this year, signalling immense growth of container traffic once it is completed.
This will also call for advanced and efficient cargo handling systems to be employed at the Mombasa port, which is currently outsourcing some of this work to cargo freight stations.
Development works comprise the construction of two main container berths with lengths of 300 metres and 210 metres respectively.
The former will be dredged to a depth of 15 metres while the latter will be 11 metres. 
The Northern Corridor artery is served by a combination of transport and storage facilities that include the maritime Mombasa port, road and rail network, lake transport, inland water routes, inland container depots, an oil pipeline and private sector-run cargo freight stations.

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