Tanzania has announced plans to start the construction of the Bagamoyo Port in the next financial year using its own resources.
In a meeting with the East African Business Council (EABC) board of directors held at Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) headquarters last week, TPA Director General Plasduce Mbossa said that they will not have to wait further for investors to start the construction of the port.
“Investors will join us on the way,” Mbossa said.
Last year, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and his counterpart in China hinted that they would revive the construction of the Bagamoyo port project that was started by the former Tanzanian head of state Jakaya Kikwete.
The port project was a three-way collaboration between China Merchants Holdings, Oman’s State General Reserve Fund, and the Tanzanian government.
If the revival dream comes true, Investors expect it to be one of the largest government infrastructural projects in the country. The Bagamoyo port and its affiliated industrial zone will address congestion at the old port and support Tanzania to become East Africa’s leading shipping and logistics center.
The initial plan was to create a US $10bn port to handle 20 million Twenty Foots Equivalent Units by 2045; that is, 25 times the amount of cargo Dar es Salaam Port takes.
The Tri-government venture between Tanzania, China, and Oman also involved the construction of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) next to the port. 190 industries, including the manure processing industry that would be done by the government of Oman.
“Regarding the Bagamoyo Port project, let me give you the good news that we have started talks to revive the entire project,” Sululu told a gathering of the Tanzania National Business Council late last year.
“We are going to start talks with the investors that came for the project to open it for the benefit of our nation,” she added.
China has been very keen on this project and upon assuming power, China president Xi Jinping visited Tanzania as the first foreign country after he was sworn in. Beijing state planners believed that the country could serve as the major gateway to China — where resources could be brought across the continent and loaded onto ships headed for the mainland.
Sululu’s comments came a few days after speaking with Xi by phone. “China is ready to work with Tanzania to merge political mutual trust, strengthen mutual support,” Xi told Sululu according to Xinhua, a China-based media outlet.
Bagamoyo port was meant to ease congestion in Dar es Salaam and transform a depressed area into a trade and manufacturing hub. An earlier African Development Bank (AfDB) report shows that Burundi has about 285 million metric tons of nickel reserves after discovering it in 1974.
The extraction was, however, hindered by a lack of infrastructure following the civil war in the mid-1990s that halted development and limited economic growth. Burundi’s nickel-ore reserves stretch from the south to the northeast of the country.
Nickel is used in many specific and recognizable industrial and consumer products, including stainless steel, alnico magnets, coinage, rechargeable batteries, electric guitar strings, microphone capsules, and special alloys.
