Eyes Big Investments

Port of durban, being major South african port, aims to maintain its competitiveness with investments planned to enhance the existing terminals and build new terminals in the coming years as a part of Transnet Market demand Strategy (MDS).

In a country where large numbers of goods are moved by sea, ports have always played a strategic role in the overall economic growth of the country. Africa is one of them. Out of the ports in Africa, Port of Durban is Africa’s third largest port and first in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Being South Africa’s premier multi cargo port, it contributes 20 percent to Durban’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 11 percent to a coastal South African provinces’ KwaZulu-Natal’s GDP, 2 percent to South Africa’s GDP.

Port of Durban has a market share of 29 percent of South African cargo. As many as 4500 vessels call at the Port of Durban annually. It handles containers, automotive cargo, breakbulk (including abnormal cargo, steel commodities and project cargo, neo-bulk, timber, steel coils and other steel profiles), and agricultural bulk (such as wheat, maize, soya bean meal, animal feed, woodchips).

The total 2015 throughput was 87 million tonnes. It handled 2.8 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) of container cargo, 9.6 million tonnes dry bulk cargo, 455,000 automotive units, 25 million kiloliter liquid bulk and 3 million tonnes break bulk.

In order to maintain its competitiveness with other ports, Port of Durban has been reducing the cost of doing business, constantly improves operational efficiency and safety, sweating existing assets as they seek to create new capacity, and encourage regional integration with other African ports.