Djibouti that inaugurated three new ports last year is going to launch the construction of another new three ports this month.
The logistics hub that is the main gateway for the land locked Ethiopia is going to commence the construction of different ports along the coast lines of the outskirt of the capital Djibouti city and Damerjog on the aim to expand its port handling capacity, which has now upper hand in the region.
Recently on the meeting held by the Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority and Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority (DPFZA) here in Addis Ababa Aboubaker Omar Hadi, Chairman of DPFZA, told Ethiopian media that the country is going to commence the construction of new additional ports that will be finalised in different phases.
“In the last 13 months we have opened three new ports. We are now planning by the end of this month to start the construction of additional three ports in different location in the country,” the chairman said.
He added that the investment cost is going to be in several phases but the initial investment would be about half a billion USD for the projects.
As one of the upcoming projects Djibouti International Container Terminal is main project that would boost the country’s exclusive container port terminal facility by additional container terminal from the current Doraleh Container Terminal.
The total investment of Djibouti International Container Terminal may cost USD 654 million and will be erected between Doraleh Container Terminal and the recently inaugurated Multi-Purpose Port (DMP) with natural water depth of 18.5m.
The upcoming additional container will have a capacity of 2.5 million TEU containers on the first phase.
The other project that is expected to be launched in the current month is the construction of Ship Repair and Drydocks, which will consume USD 200 million, according to the document Capital obtained from DPFZA.
Djibouti Damerjog Industries Development (DDID) is also the other huge project that the Djibouti government planned to undertake in the near future.
The DDID project will have a multipurpose port, livestock terminal, a refinery, storage tanks, dry dock, gas complex and its jetty, and jetty for refined and crude oil.
Few years back Djibouti has been targeting to construct the livestock port at Damerjog, a place that is close to the border of Somaliland in the south of Djibouti, but it has been revised with additional huge and massive development facilities.
As per the plan the DDID will have a multipurpose port that shall accommodate all kind of cargos including bulk and containerized. The livestock port that targeted to solve the claim of livestock exporters from Ethiopia will be constructed on the aim to boost and modernize the cattle export of Ethiopia.
At the same time the complex port and additional facilities will also include several projects that are directly related with the natural gas development and export from Ethiopia.