Tanzania has started construction work on $11 billion port and special economic zone, a project backed by China and Oman which aims to transform the East African country into a regional trade and transport hub.
The new port, which will be Tanzania’s biggest, is being built at Bagamoyo, 75 km North of Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital that is currently the site of the country’s main port, which is operating beyond its capacity with limited space for expansion.
President Jakaya Kikwete attended a groundbreaking ceremony and said construction of phase I of the project would take three years. “The construction of the Bagamoyo port and a special economic zone is aimed at realising the government’s goal of bringing about an industrial revolution in Tanzania,” he said.
Bagamoyo will have the capacity to handle 20 million containers a year, compared with Mombasa’s installed capacity of 600,000 and Dar es Salaam’s 500,000. The country has also secured $164.3 million from the Netherlands for the expansion of the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam to ease pressing capacity constraints.
Government officials said the port would also be able to handle mega-ships, with a container vessel size of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) after the first phase was completed, with room for expansion.
The project is being funded by China Merchants Holdings (International), China’s largest port operator, and Oman’s State General Reserve Fund. The Chinese firm will handle much of the construction work.
