Kenya port eyes South Africa's Durban in bid to boost shipping

A section of the containers at the Kenya Ports Authority in Mombasa County on Wednesday 14th August 2014. Photo/Kelvin Karani

Nairobi; Kenya: Kenya's port operators will send employees for training in South Africa as they seek to match the success of Durban, the continent's busiest shipping hub.

The East African nation is taking steps toward co-operation and regional integration in shipping, signing an agreement with Transnet SOC Ltd., said Tau Morwe, chief executive of South Africa's Transnet National Ports Authority, according to a statement e-mailed last week by Kenya Ports Authority.

Some African ports lack deep-water berths and equipment amid limited staff training and capital to develop infrastructure, he said.

Kenya Ports Authority official Justus Nyarandi said "management and junior employees" would be sent to Durban "to see the benchmarks that have been set," according to the statement. Mombasa, East Africa's largest port, is looking to Transnet for support as it seeks a private operator for the first phase of a terminal that's nearing completion and can handle 550,000 twenty-foot containers (TEUs), per year, he said.

Durban is South Africa's busiest port, handling almost 63 per cent of the country's container traffic, or 3.6 million TEUs, a year.-Bloomberg