Cargo dwell time at the Port of Mombasa has reduced from an average of 5.6 days in December 2020 to 4.6 days in January 2021.
This follows a raft of strategic operational changes implemented by the Authority. Recently, KPA took over SGR operations at Port Reitz Yard previously undertaken by Kenya Railways Operator and reorganized all railtainer operational processes with logistics partners, hence increasing end-to-end efficiency in the port operations.
Dangerous cargo (DG) loading which was previously experiencing great delays due to dedicating only one loading zone at Container Terminal 1 (CT1) has now been improved by dedicating an additional loading point at Portreitz yard thus reducing the transfer distance from Container Terminal 2 to CT1 and reducing evacuation time of DG Containers.
Additionally, centralization of the cargo handling processes and the recently introduced double deck wagons on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) have significantly contributed to increased deliveries to the Inland Container Depot.
“Loading of double deck wagons has greatly boosted the number of containers being evacuated. We started with one double deck train of 38 wagons hauling 152 TEUs and this has now stabilized at two trains per week with plans to run at least one double deck train per day,” observed Acting Managing Director Eng. Rashid Salim.
A single double deck train currently hauls 152 TEUs on a single trip using up to 30 percent less resources compared to the normal single stack train.
The Port of Mombasa recorded a marginal decline of 0.9% in total cargo throughput last year. A total of 34.12 million tons of cargo were handled in 2020 against 34.44 million tons handled in 2019.
Container traffic declined by 4.0% from 1,416,654 TEUs in 2019 to 1,359,579 TEUs in 2020. The decrease was mainly attributed to disruptions to the supply chain because of global lockdowns imposed due to the raging Covid-19 pandemic.
As part of improving the service delivery to customers across the region, KPA plans to enhance the use of automated Handheld Terminals (HHT) for customers to get real time updates.
“We are in constant communication with our stakeholders to come up with more strategies for swift ship turnaround so that we not only improve efficiency but also jointly meet our obligations,” Salim explained.
Imports of all the East Africa Community Partner States recovered to pre-pandemic levels by the second half of 2020, after governments’ lockdown restrictions were eased and a broader global trade recovery started to take place,” a recent report ‘Waving or drowning? The impact of COVID 19 on East Africa Community trade said in part.
In the initial months after its onset, the pandemic triggered massive supply and demand shocks in China- the country where the virus was first detected. Due to the complexity of integrated value chains between China and the rest of the world, the pandemic’s adverse impact on the Chinese economy had an almost immediate ripple effect on global trade.
By the second quarter of 2020, the virus had spread globally, provoking stringent border controls, a generalized economic activity slowdown and provoking a global trade contraction.
Currently, about 20 percent of global trade in manufacturing intermediate products originates in China, up from 4 percent in 2002. Similarly, imports of manufactured products from China to EAC account for about 32 percent of the total, compared to the 6 percent of the total in 2002.
The report was done with the support of TradeMark East Africa (TMEA); the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Sub-Regional Office of Eastern Africa (UNECA SRO-EA) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) observed that despite this recovery, the pandemic has had some significant negative impacts on other aspects of regional trade.
