Port Of Luanda Gets US $105Million Lifeline to Tackle Congestion, Bottlenecks

The port of Luanda is to enjoy a fresh injection  of US$105 Million to transform it into a more cost-effective and efficient port, says its chief executive, Silvio Vinhas.
Explaining the rationale behind the ambitious funds injection, Vinhas acknowledged that delays and congestion in the port have been a cause of sharply rising costs of goods entering the country.
Luanda is regarded as one of African most expensive cities. The aim of the restructuring and revamp is to increase the number of working hours for cargo operators and to improve the state of roads leading to the port.
He said a system of increased fines for companies who do not remove containers promptly from the port would be introduced, a move that is aimed at improving terminal turnover and turnaround ahead of the development of a larger more modern container terminal at Dande, to the north of Angola’s capital. Approximately 20,000 containers await collection at the port’s container terminal at any one time, according to local newspaper reports.
He said the modernization plan would bring positive results although it wasn’t expected that all delays would disappear until the new terminal was built as traffic volumes remained high.
Luanda is expected to handle 6.6 million tonnes of cargo in 2009, a 10 per cent increase on 2008.