The government of Zimbabwe has announced completing
construction of US $3.5m Dry Port Facility at Walvis Bay in Namibia. Namibian
Ambassador to Zimbabwe Balbina Daes Pienaar broke the news during her country’s
29th Independence anniversary celebrations.
Construction of the facility which began in 2014
was spearheaded by RMS, a subsidiary of the National Railways of Zimbabwe
(NRZ), in
partnership with the Walvis Bay Corridor Group
(WBCG) and
the Namibian Port Authority with the African Development Bank providing the funding.
The new container terminal is set to double the
port’s container handling capacity from the current 350,000 to more than
750,000 containers. It is aimed at improving trade between the two countries
and to ease movement of goods and services through Walvis Bay, a strategically located
logistics hub in the Southern African region.
According to the ambassador, the project has a
potential to open a strategic gateway to the sea for Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s trade
volumes through the Port of Walvis Bay have grown significantly to about 2 500
tonnes per month and Walvis Bay Corridor serves as a real alternative to link
Zimbabwe to Europe, North America and South America.
“On bilateral matters, noteworthy growth in the
mutual relationship between Zimbabwe and Namibia is observed since the
establishment of JPCC, and yielding tangible results in various fields such as
Tourism, Defence, Diplomatic Cooperation, Agriculture, Trade and Investment,
Higher Education, Science and Engineering, ICT, Information, Media and
Broadcasting, Women Affairs, Gender, Arts and Culture, Sports and SME
Development among others,” said Ambassador Pienaar.
In 2009 the Namibian Government granted Zimbabwe 19 000 m2 of land to construct its own dry port that is expected to boost the country’s trade but due to financial constrains the project had previouslyt failed to take off. https://constructionreviewonline.com/2019/04/us-3-5m-dry-port-facility-at-walvis-bay-namibia-complete/
