For the first nine months, Kenya’s main port of Mombasa handled 9% more cargo compared to the same period in 2018. This increase was attributed to greater handling capacity and the country exported more to the neighbouring countries.
Mombasa is a central access point for East and Central Africa and thus handles exports and imports for Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Burundi.
According to Reuters, the port handled 25.25 million tonnes of cargo between January and September compared to 23.36 million tonnes during a similar period in 2018.
Container traffic also increased by 10.7% to 1.06 million 20 feet equivalent units. Cargo that was transported to other countries was up by 136.8% to 1.87 million tons from 791,257 tonnes in the previous period of 2018..
In 2012 the Mombasa Port was expanded and added a new container terminal in order to allow bigger vessels to access the port. The first phase of the project was inaugurated in 2016.
The new container vessel handled 381,288 TEUs during the period January-September 2018/2019. That is 36% of the total container traffic that was handled in the port.
The Kenya Government also has plans to build a second port in Lamu that will have a capacity of 23 million tonnes per year.
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