Ethiopia Acquires 9 Ships To Facilitate Maritime Transport — Official

The Ethiopian Government has acquired nine new ships at the cost of 219 million dollars to facilitate the country’s maritime transport.
Ahmed Tusa, Director-General of the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Enterprise (ELSE), announced this on Friday in Addis Ababa during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the organisation.
The nine ships, comprising two vessels for fuel transportation and seven multi-purpose cargo carriers, were built by China and acquired through collaboration with China Exim Bank.

The Ethiopian Government has acquired nine new ships at the cost of 219 million dollars to facilitate the country’s maritime transport.
Ahmed Tusa, Director-General of the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Enterprise (ELSE), announced this on Friday in Addis Ababa during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the organisation.
The nine ships, comprising two vessels for fuel transportation and seven multi-purpose cargo carriers, were built by China and acquired through collaboration with China Exim Bank.
 Ethiopia being a landlocked nation in Eastern Africa region uses its neighbouring Djibouti Port to berth the ships.
Tusa said the new ships would strengthen Ethiopia’s maritime transport capacity and increase the volume of cargo being transported by the country’s six existing vessels, which stood at about 50 per cent.
The official said the agency had resolved the challenges associated with multi-modal transport system, after it recruited a foreign consulting company to handle its charting procedures for efficient service delivery.
The government had earlier announced the establishment of four new dry ports in different regions to add to the existing ones to ease congestion at the ports.
Tusa said that the new dry ports, were expected to accommodate 9,300 containers when completed.
He said that this would lower the number stacked up in Djibouti Port, “which at one point reached over 25,000, to just over a thousand.’’
The agency said the effort would be realised through the implementation of new procedures and coordinated efforts with other relevant government departments.
“We are now working on reducing the numbers of containers at the dry ports, and had asked importers to collect their containers on time to relieve congestion at the dry ports,’’ he said.