The Tanzanian Government has recently announced that construction works at the Bagamoyo Port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Tanzania’s coastal northern region will not be halted as previously speculated, and will continue as scheduled in November, 2015.
The announced was done by a statement released by Tanzania’s Ministry of Transport, Work, Supply, and Communications (MTWSC) to deny that the government decided to stop the port and SEZ’ construction to focus on raising the capacity of Mtwara and Dar es Salaam ports as announced for some local medias in January, 2016.
According to the MTWSC, the government is currently in talks with the Sultanate of Oman through the State General Reserve Found (SGRF) and the Chinese Government through China Merchants Holding International (CMHI) to tune financing terms on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2014 between the three governments.
In addition, the Ministry stated that the government already compensated a total of 2,183 residents living in the future port and SEZ areas with a total of TZS 45.65 billion in December, 2015, after it was announced in November, 2015, that construction works kick-started.
The area destined to the port totals 800 hectares while the SEZ will be developed on a total surface of 1,700 hectares.
The total investment is calculated in USD 10 billion – TZS 22 trillion – and aims at making Tanzania a trade and transport hub in East Africa.
The Bagamoyo port will be able to handle shipping traffic from mega deep sea ships with container vessels size of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) with the possibility of being expanded and is expected to process 20 million containers annually.
The port will also reduce burden on Dar Es Salaam port’s that is working over capacity with traffic from mega deep sea ships having increased from 26.0 million gross register tonnage (GRT) in 2011/12 to 26.4 million GRT in 2012/13, according to Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) latest statistics.
The Bagamoyo SEZ is expected to host more than 1,000 factories and raise the current labor demand of 31,923 generated by 130 registered companies at EPZs, to 500,000 jobs.
