NEW FERTILIZER TERMINAL TO BENEFIT SOME SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONS

Southern African countries
including Malawi which depend
on the port of Beira in
Mozambique for imports and
exports will from next year start
realising reduced costs and
expedited handling of their
imported farm inputs including
fertilises as the former
Portuguese colony will later this
year commence the construction
of a new 600 meter ship key.
The new 600 meter stretch ship
yard is expected to have the
capacity to accommodate three-
two hundred meter water
vessels at one go.
The new docking area which is
expected to tremendously
enhance the port's capacity in
handling cargo for land-locked
countries will also have a
fertiliser terminal that will
provide more flexibility in the
management of their cargo than
is the case at present.
The terminal will take the daily
fertiliser handling capacity of the
Indian Ocean Nation's port to 8
thousand tonnes per day from
the current 1500 tonnes once
operational.
Manager of the sea harbour,
Carlos Mesquita who is also
Executive Director for Cornelder
Mozambique, a company that
operates the container and
general cargo terminal told the
Malawi News Agency (Mana) that
the new fertiliser facility's
construction is in response to
pressure which land-locked
countries like Malawi, Zambia and
Zimbabwe have been exerting on
the facility when importing huge
volumes of farm inputs during
the farming periods.
"We know that economies of the
countries that use the Beira Port
for imports of farm inputs are
agro-based and that the region
requires over 1,500,000 metric
tonnes of fertilisers out of which
five to 600,000 metric tonnes are
handled by the port of Beira.
"It is due to the ever increasing
demands for a more robust and
expedited service on the inputs
that we decided to have
additional facilities to service the
countries better," said
Mesquita who accompanied a
Mozambican delegation that
briefed Malawian business gurus
in Malawi's commercial capital,
Blantyre on the steps their
country is taking to iron out
huddles being experienced by
countries when transporting
their cargo to and from his
country's harbours.
He said the new terminal which
is expected to be ready by
October next year will be
constructed in two phases with
the first to begin anytime from
now which, upon completion,
will be able to handle between
750,000 to 800,000 metric
tonnes on its own.
Explained Mesquita; "We thought
that it was wise and practically
right to erect this terminal but
looking at the continuous
demand of handling fertilisers
through the port of Beira and
landlocked counties commitment
to the service, we will move on to
phase two of the construction
after analysing the first phase
results."
He said the new facility would
also come along with other
benefits like an opportunity for
countries like Malawi to have
contracts directly with shipping
entities while reducing shipment
costs in the process.
Mesquita said with the huge
handling capacity that will be
realised after the new facility is
completed, countries will have
their shipments transported in
time as ships will take lesser time
at the new offloading area.
"In addition, the new facility will
ease the life of the importer as
they will easily arrange transport
logistics for their cargo. They will
have options of whether to
transport fertilisers in bulk or
load it in bags," he said.
Malawi has currently superseded
Zimbabwe which was leading in
the past on the list of countries
that largely use Beira Port for its
imports as, according to
Mesquita, the Southern African
nation makes 50 percent of the
harbour's import cargo. Other
countries include Zambia and
Zimbabwe which like Malawi are
landlocked.
In recent times, Malawi made
headlines as it embarked on the
construction of an inland port
dubbed the Shire Zambezi Water
which was highly touted due to
its capacity to cut import costs by
almost 60 percent but the project
is yet to be completed owing to a
feasibility study that is yet to be
carried out.