04 Aug 2019

President of Namibia, Dr Hage Geingob, says the landlocked Sub Saharan countries connected to Namibia shall be linked to the sea via the newly built high capacity container terminal at Walvis Bay port.

Speaking during commissioning of the facility, which was created after acquiring 40 hectares of land from the sea at Walvis Bay, Dr Geingob said, on August 2, that the facility shall become Africa’s express hub.

The new container terminal, which would channel high capacity cargo, was a strategic gate way to enhance markets of Southern Africa and West Africa as well as Latin America.

The sea area, which was initially a fishing hub had been transformed through reclaiming of land for port expansion.

He noted that Namibia was linked to neighbouring countries through various transport corridors, thus the country strived to capitalise on the immense investment by harnessing the vast potential of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with no immediate access to the ocean.

Countries such as Zambia, Botswana, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe were among the land linked countries whose cargo would go through the port of Walvis Bay.

He said Zimbabwe recently inaugurated its dry port, joining Botswana and Zambia who both have dry ports in Namibia.

Thus, he said, the new terminal shall support the SADC regional integration agenda.

“Through this development, countries in the region can now become sea linked, hence the new container terminal gives us the additional capacity to serve both local and regional requirements,” he said.

Dr Geingob stated that the new container terminal was in line with the African Union agenda 2063 which strived to attain “the Africa that we want. Africa which will become an economical global powerhouse of the future”.

He encouraged captains of the industry and small and medium enterprises to use the new terminal.

The container terminal expansion was spearheaded by Namport, which President Geingob said was a strategic initiative.

Director of Namport Board, Ms Nangula Hamunyela, said the port landscape had changed hence the need to accommodate larger vessels.

The project started 10 years ago.

Requisitions were received from one of the largest shipping lines in the world-Maesk to accommodate the bigger vessels.

The project expanded the container capacity from 250 000 to 350 000.

She said 2.7 million cubic meters of sand was reclaimed from the sea while 3. 7 million cubic meters was threshed to form a basin at the port. 12 million interlocking blocks had been laid on site to create the historic container terminal.

The historic project, which altered Namibia’s geographic map was financed by the African Development Bank and was built by China Harbour Engineering Company. ENDS