Dar gets Sh50b funding to compete with Mombasa port

Dar; Tanzania: Tanzania signed a $565 million deal on Friday with the World Bank and other development partners to expand its main port of Dar es Salaam, part of plans to boost its role as a regional trade hub. Tanzania wants to lift capacity to 28 million tonnes a year by 2020 from the 14.6 million tonnes it handled in the financial year 2013/14. The World Bank said in May that inefficiencies at the port cost Tanzania and neighbours up to $2.6 billion (Sh230 billion) a year.

The port, whose main rival is the bigger but also congested port of Mombasa in Kenya, acts as a trade gateway for landlocked states such as Zambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Burundi and Uganda, as well as the eastern region of Democratic Republic of the Congo.