REMARKS BY THE KPA ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR AMB. JOHN MWANGEMI DURING MAIDEN CALL FOR CMA CGM VESSEL- MV SPIRIT OF DUBAI AT LAMU PORT ON 19th JULY 2021
Lamu County Commissioner Mr. Irungu Macharia,
- The CMA-CGM Deputy GM, East Africa, Mr. Daniel Sepetu,
- MV Spirit of Dubai Captain, Ataner Polat,
- Distinguished Guests,
- The KPA General Manager Lamu Port, Eng. Abdullahi Samatar,
- Colleagues in the Port Community,
- The Media,
- Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon.
I am delighted to welcome MV Spirit of Dubai on her maiden call and first visit at the Port of Lamu. This being my first major event in my capacity as the Acting Managing Director for Kenya Ports Authority, is of great honor and special to me. I take this opportunity to welcome you all to the Port of Lamu, which by the way is 241 kilometers (150 miles) from the headquarters at the Port of Mombasa.
Foremost, I wish to warmly appreciate the owner of this vessel, CMA CGM, one of the world's biggest and most reputable shipping lines, for the outstanding business relations with Kenya Ports Authority over the years and for choosing to be at the forefront in using the new Port of Lamu, as part of their global shipping network. I am glad that this event aims at further strengthening business relations and partnerships not only between KPA and CMA CGM, but also between our two great nations, Kenya and France.
For us at KPA and the larger Kenya, the dream of spearheading transshipment business has now become a reality at this Port which was operationalized by H.E. President Uhuru Kenyatta, two months ago (20th May 2021). Last week on Thursday, 15th July 2021, Lamu received the first commercial ship MV Amu 1, owned by a local shipping company, Lamu Shipping Limited. Now with the arrival of MV Spirit of Dubai in less than a week's time, your presence will surely inspire confidence and help raise the profile of the Port of Lamu on the global map.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are privileged to have the Port of Lamu as a second commercial port to complement the Port of Mombasa primarily targeting transshipment business in the region. This Port is strategically located at the middle of major shipping routes with the deep-water harbour on the East Coast of Africa, thus in no doubt a premier transshipment hub for all cargo destined for the continent. The Port of Lamu is advantaged due to its natural depth of minus 17.5 meters along the main channel to 60 meters at the bay. This Port is capable of handling panamax and post-panamax vessels with a capacity of over 10,000 TEUs.
As you are aware, the mega port, which is still undergoing construction, will ultimately have 23 berths. We are encouraged by the construction progress of the first phase, which comprises three berths for container, general and bulk cargo. The first berth is the one that is currently operational - and the main reason why we are here today for business. We are confident that the two other berths will be operationalized before the end of this year.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish to reiterate that we at Kenya Ports Authority value the cordial relations with CMA CGM, as one of the top shipping lines that call at the Port of Mombasa with big cargo volumes. Their presence is significant, based on the statistics in our possession for the Port of Mombasa, we can only hope that the same will soon be replicated and possibly exceeded at this new Port.
In the year 2020, CMA-CGM handled a total of 171,311 TEUs in and out of the Port of Mombasa up from 120,810 TEUs handled in 2019. This represents 12.6 % of the total volume handled by the Port in 2020 and accounted for the third highest volume by shipping lines last year up from fifth position. This is despite the global transport and supply chain disruptions occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic.
Kenya Ports Authority will continue making deliberate efforts to enhance the maritime sector in collaboration with all stakeholders, industry players and development partners. We are not going to rest on our laurels, until we fulfil that great desire of getting and sustaining vibrant transshipment activities between the Port of Lamu and the region.
We want to assure importers and exporters of our commitment to offer efficient and timely services at our port facilities, with continuous improvements to meet and even exceed their expectations. We are determined to become and remain the most popular transshipment port in the region. Today's arrival of MV Spirit of Dubai, will hopefully signal other shipping lines to consider the Port of Lamu as a preferred port of call. Therefore, we are prepared to continue receiving more vessels in the coming few days. I want to assure stakeholders that we are very ready! As you can clearly see, we have installed yard operations equipment, with two Harbour Mobile Cranes, ICT infrastructure and we also have deployed multi-skilled staff to ensure smooth operations. We also are committed to bringing in Ship to Shore Gantry cranes in order to fully kit these 3 berths. I therefore call upon other shipping lines to introduce services to the Port of Lamu.
Cumulative Port performance January -June 2021
Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to use this golden opportunity to share our port performance half year results.
During the period January to June 2021, the Port of Mombasa handled 18.333 million tons in cargo throughput against 16.394 million tons registered in the corresponding period in 2020 representing a notable growth of 11.8 percent. This also surpassed the forecasted target by 0.5 percent.
During the same period, total containers registered a 15.3 percent increase to record 754,148 TEUs in 2021 up from 654,054 TEUs registered in a similar period in 2020.
Transshipment traffic also grew by a remarkable 55.9 percent to record 125,141 TEUs compared to 80,278 TEUs witnessed in 2020.
However, during the period under review, there was a decline in terms of transit traffic, which dropped by 5.4 percent, having registered 4.73 million tons in 2021 against 5 million tons recorded in 2020. The negative performance is attributed to the decreased handling of cargo for Uganda and Rwanda by 208,811 tons or 5.5 percent and 119,702 tons or 57.4 percent, respectively. For Uganda, this was attributed to the general elections held in the country, resurgence of COVID-19 in the region and the resultant economic lockdowns in both Uganda and Rwanda.
The reduction in the regional economic activity is projected to continue into the next quarter of the year. However, we look forward to increased business volumes in the remaining half of the calendar year.
With those remarks, I would like to conclude by saying that for us at KPA to succeed, we shall enhance collaboration with all our customers and stakeholders. We are therefore actively open to your constructive views towards improving efficiency and overall trade performance in the region.
Thank you and God bless you.