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Kenya eyes third position in container handling

Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 00:00 | By
KPA MD Manduku.

Kenya will in January improve its cargo handling rank in Africa to position three after the commissioning of four more ports, Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has said.

Currently Kenya is ranked fifth after Egypt, South Africa, Tanzania and Morocco due to increased efficiency in cargo handling and the rising volumes of containers entering and leaving its port.

The ongoing construction of Lamu port, Shimoni fishing port, the Inland Container Depot in Naivasha and the lakeside port of Kisumu are at an advanced stage of completion.

KPA managing director Daniel Manduku told Business Hub that KPA projects to cross 1.3 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) at the end of the year from one million TEUs achieved last week.

“We are optimistic to move up to position three from the current fifth in Africa by the end of the year. Ports are rated on their efficiency and the volumes of cargo they handle. We believe we are improving tremendously,” he said.

Land reclamation

Numbers released last month show that annual handling capacity at the Port of Mombasa had increased from 250,000 TEUs in 2008 to the current above one million TEUs. 

The recent reclamation of 100 acres of land from the sea in Phase 1 of the port’s expansion programme will inject an additional 550,000 TEUs container terminal capacity.

“In the maritime sector the one million TEUs mark is very high and I am happy that we hit the one million TEUs mark almost four months to the close of the year.

Going by our daily handling of between 3,500 TEUs and 4,000 TEUs we might surpass 1.4 million TEUs,” said Manduku during a recent tour of the second container terminal.                           

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