Restoring the 'beehive'

Port construction will link landlocked African countries to coast, boosting emerging economies and bringing development to once-isolated regions

The developmental inequalities between Africa's landlocked countries and coastal regions will soon be narrowed, and emerging economies will become more competitive, thanks to the ongoing construction and expansion of ports in African countries by Chinese companies under the Road and Belt Initiative.

According to the World Economic Forum, 90 percent of trade in Africa is conducted by sea, implying the need for port modernization, expansion and maintenance in order to push greater trade volume, both within the continent and globally.

Currently, most of the African ports face the challenge of dealing with the growing volume of cargo and the increasing number and size of ships. This has prompted authorities and operators to increase capacity, analyze operations to boost efficiency and employ measures to allow bigger ships into their ports.

The construction site of the proposed Lamu Port in Nairobi, Kenya. Photos by Edith Mutethya / China Daily

 

China, under the Belt and Road Initiative goals, is playing a key role in helping the continent solve that challenge through financial and technical support.

A beehive of activities in port construction and expansion sites is evident as the countries prepare for the ever-growing port capacity needs.

Kenya, which is identified as a key maritime pivot point in East Africa, is constructing a $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros; ￡4.1 billion) port at Lamu.

The project, which is being undertaken by China Communication Construction Co Group, is part of the $24 billion Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport corridor project.

On completion, the project is expected to cut overdependence on Kenya's main port of Mombasa as well as open the country's largely underdeveloped northern frontier, through creation of a second corridor.

It is also expected to boost the country's economic growth, promote international trade and link East and Central African regions to the International markets.

According to Guo Ce, the economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese embassy in Kenya, the completion of Lamu Port will provide Kenya and Africa with another traffic artery, giving full play to economic radiation.

"The port will promote economic development in the northern part of Kenya and the entire East African region," he says.

So far, the first phase of the project - which involves construction of three berths of a planned 32, reclamation of the sea to place the berths more than 700 meters into the Indian Ocean and building of a causeway - is 25 percent complete.

According to Charles Wu, the project manager, the shipyard for containers will be 1.2 million square meters. Mombasa Port's current shipyard is 65,000 square meters.

Each berth will be 400 meters long, compared with the 240-meter-long Mombasa Port berths, and they will be able to accommodate a maximum of three docks.

The three berths are designed to handle 30,000 deadweight tonnage for general container cargo and 100,000 deadweight tonnage for bulk container cargo.

The contractor is also dredging the quayside to deepen the docking area for ships by 19.8 meters.

Wu says 330 meters will be preserved for future construction of a railway line. According to Kenya Railways Corp, Lamu Port will be served by two standard gauge railway lines: Lamu Port to Isiolo to Juba, South Sudan; and Nairobi to Isiolo to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The purpose of the railway is to provide landlocked Ethiopia and South Sudan with access to the Indian Ocean seafront for exports and imports, as well as to open up northern Kenya for exploitation of such resources as minerals, agricultural and livestock products, fish from Lake Turkana, human capital and tourism.

The railway is also expected to catalyze alternative activities in northern Kenya to stem insecurity and cattle rustling as well as to develop the Lamu-Juba route westward to form the Great Equatorial Land Bridge.

The Great Equatorial Land Bridge was conceived to link the Indian and Atlantic oceans along the equator from the eastern side, Africa's Lamu Port in Kenya, to West Africa in Douala, Cameroon.

The land bridge will cut across the middle of Africa by a road and high-speed rail network and a fiber optic cable and oil pipeline, starting from Lamu at the Indian Ocean in Kenya and going through Juba in South Sudan; Bangui, Central African Republic; and finally linking to the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean in Cameroon, through Yaounde and Douala.

According to Allen Zeng, the project manager, the first phase of the Lamu project, which began in June last year, is expected to be completed in January 2020.

"In June 2018, we expect to hand over the first berth for operation. It will be used for offloading building materials for the other project components. The second berth should be complete by June 2019, and the third one in June 2020," he says.

The construction of the first three berths is fully financed by the government of Kenya, while the remaining 29 will be financed through public private partnership under the build-operate-transfer model.

Ali Swale, a resident of Lamu Island, says completion of the port will see restoration of a once busy import-export trading center.

"There was a beehive of trade activities in this island during the colonial period, and we hope that the port will restore the trading activities. We also expect the island to develop further and be modernized," he says.

Similar to Kenya, Tanzania is constructing the $10 billion Bagamoyo Port, which is expected to be the largest in East Africa upon completion. It will transform Tanzania into a transportation logistics hub and a gateway to regional and international trade.

The project is being developed under an agreement between the Tanzanian government, China Merchants Holding International and Oman's State Government Reserve Fund.

The Bagamoyo Port will be more than 20 times the size of the existing Dar es Salaam Port and will have the capacity to handle 20 million containers annually. Dar Es Salaam Port handles 500,000 containers a year. The project is expected to occupy 800 hectares with an adjacent 1,700-hectare industrial zone.

However, the project was suspended in January last year and construction is yet to restart.

Angola is also building a deep-sea port in Cabinda aimed at boosting the country's trade. The construction work for the $600 million, Chinese-funded deep sea port project began last year and the first phase is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

This will include a terminal with a 630-meter quay and an alongside depth of 14 meters, connected to the shore by a two kilometer bridge. A ship repair facility and free trade zone are also part of the first phase of the project, which is being built by China Harbour Engineering Co.

Cameroon is also constructing a deep water port in Kribi. Covering 26,000 hectares in the Gulf of Guinea, the port, which also is being constructed by China Harbour Engineering, will improve shipping services in the country as well as allow import and export vessels to be accommodated as part of large industrial projects (iron ore mines, aluminum plants and liquefied natural gas).

Cote d'Ivoire is also expanding Abidjan Port. The project, also undertaken by China Harbour Engineering, is expected to be completed in July 2019. It involves construction of a second container terminal as well as widening of the canal leading to the main port.

Congo's Pointe Noire Port is being expanded by China Road and Bridge Corp. Thirty-one berths will be constructed in the project, as well as a business park, warehouses, a power plant and an oil refinery. The deep-water berths will be able to serve vessels of up to 300,000 deadweight tonnage.

Other port construction and expansion projects by Chinese companies in Africa include expansion of Walvis Bay Port in Namibia by China Harbour Engineering; expansion of the container terminal in Conakry Port in Guinea, also by China Harbour Engineering; and construction of a container terminal in Lome Port in Togo by China Merchants Holdings (International) Co.

The history of the ancient Maritime Silk Road dates back 2,000 years. The golden age of this sea route culminated in expeditions of the great Chinese navigator Zheng He from 1405 to 1433 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Kenya was the far westward end reached by Zheng's treasure fleets. Chinese porcelain found along the Kenyan coast illustrates the historical link between China and Africa.

"Today, Kenya plays a key role of the eastern gate when the Belt and Road Initiative is being projected to Africa from China across the Indian Ocean," says Guo Ce, counselor at China's embassy in Kenya.

edithmutethya@chinadaily.com.cn