The Port of Maputo has moved into a new league with the shipment of its first consignment of BMWs. Pieter Venter, general manager of Grindrod Maputo Car Terminal, said the cars were part of a trial shipment for BMW, which saw the Port of Maputo used for the export of 216 vehicles to Australia. “This terminal accepted its first vehicles in November 2007 and since then we have just continued to grow. We have seen companies like Nissan South Africa move some of their imports to the Port of Maputo and we import many cars for the local market as well as cars in transit destined for Zimbabwe.” He said the willingness of BMW to test-drive the port was a sign that trust in the car terminal was growing. “The vehicles were brought up by road ahead of the vessel that sailed from the port on October 22.” According to Venter the same trial run for BMW also saw 65 vehicles imported through Maputo in October from Europe. “These vehicles were moved to South Africa, the market for which they are intended. We believe that both road and rail were important for the terminal and are therefore continuously in negotiations with the Mozambican and South African railways.” The Grindrod car terminal is becoming a viable option for vehicle manufacturers not just because of the short distance between Maputo and Gauteng, but also because of the port efficiency and the systems in the vehicle terminal itself, he added. “We have one of the most sophisticated management systems of all the vehicle terminals in Africa,” said Venter. “We can move 54 000 vehicles a year and if we continue to sign contracts, we will immediately implement the second phase to expand the terminal to an envisaged capacity of 250 000 vehicles.”
