Piloting of the Single Maritime Window System started piloting on Monday last week with six shipping lines until January 2020 in a move expected to significantly improve ships clearing and turnaround at the port of Mombasa.
KenTrade has been working with the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) to implement the system that is meant to facilitate ship clearance procedures by providing a single online portal for the declaration of information on the arrival, stay and departure of ships between the shipping line/agent and the approving government agencies involved in the process.
It is a mandatory requirement for national governments to introduce electronic information exchange between ships and ports, which came into effect from 8 April 2019. This is aimed at making cross-border trade simpler and the logistics chain more efficient for the more than 10 billion tons of goods that are traded by sea annually across the globe.
The requirement, under International Maritime Convention’s (IMO’s) Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL Convention), is part of a package of amendments under the revised Annex to the FAL Convention, adopted in 2016.
This will reduce or eliminate the manual, decentralized, duplicated and unnecessary lengthy processes in the maritime sector which is affecting the ship turnaround time and increased costs at the port of Mombasa.
“The MSW system testing was planned for March 2020 and rolled out in April 2020 but owing to COVID19 disruption, there were setback in the schedule which I am glad to report is now fully back on course,” Chief Executive Officer Mr Amos Wangora said in a recent address, adding that once completed, the project is expected to provide a lot of benefits to both the maritime and trade facilitation industry.
“The new FAL Convention requirement for all Public Authorities to establish systems for the electronic exchange of information related to maritime transport marks a significant move in the maritime industry and ports towards a digital maritime world, reducing the administrative burden and increasing the efficiency of maritime trade and transport,” said IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim in an earlier press release.
Data from the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) shows the Mombasa port’s overall throughput was 34.44 million tonnes in 2019 compared to 30.92 million the previous year, marking a growth of 11.4 percent, which was brought in by slightly over 20 shipping lines- at an average of about 35 ships every week.
The Kenya Ports Authority’s (KPA) vessel-calling report shows that Denmark’s Maersk Line topped the list with a 35 per cent share of container volume in Mombasa, a margin of 19.9 to the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the closest rival.
Maersk brought 185 ships to the port trading a total of 457,685 TEU for both imports and exports, according to the report.
Mediterranean Shipping Company had 131 vessels call at the port of Mombasa, trading a total of 198,451 TEU for both imports and exports, hence controlling a 15.2 per cent share of container throughput.
CMA CGM had 59 of its ships call at the port to trade a total of 98,398 TEU, translating into a 7.5 per cent share. The CMA CGM vessels carried 50,616 TEU of full imports and 2,626 TEU of empty imports, 11,462 TEU of full exports and 33,694 TEU of empty exports.
KenTrade signed a partnership agreement with TMEA for the enhancement of Kenya’s Single Window System to improve on its performance and eventually enable faster and efficient trade processes.
TMEA has already set aside funds to enhance usage of the TradeNet system as well as the implementation of the Maritime Single Window in Kenya.
TMEA is also supporting KenTrade in building capacity in data processing and reporting as part of this initiative through acquisition of a business intelligence tool and its integration to the Single Window System.
The FAL Convention, which has 121 Contracting Governments, contains standards and recommended practices and rules for simplifying formalities, documentary requirements and procedures on ships’ arrival, stay and departure.
