Coega hub gets Safmarine’s vote

‘It could generate millions’ TERRY HUTSON REGARDLESS OF who provides the infrastructure at the ports, the development of a new container terminal at Coega provides South Africa with a golden opportunity of becoming an international transhipment hub and making millions of rands. This is the view of Safmarine Africa executive Alan Jones, who spoke to FTW immediately after minister of public enterprises Alec Erwin told a business breakfast in Durban last week that the time for planning was over. “Having a transhipment hub there (Coega) would give shipping lines lots of possibilities – for example we could bring Europe business from the Far East to Coega and put it on our Europe service north. Immediately the scope for shipping lines becomes significant. We would be able to operate far better service schedules operating to one port instead of many with improved efficiency levels and customers having better choices because they would have far more ships coming. Everybody benefits, including South Africa’s economy.” Jones was reluctant to put figures to what he thought a transhipment hub at Coega would generate, but said that if the terminal was really efficient there was no reason why foreign cargo couldn’t far exceed South Africa’s combined container handling - perhaps to a factor of four times over and above what South Africa does. “As a fairly small economy, that’s where we should be looking. The other issue is that if we get it done it can significantly boost trade out of Asia into East and West Africa, and we’d become the hub for Africa. For instance a lot of cargo would come here and then be taken up to East Africa – much of that currently goes to hubs in the Middle East – we could replace those and be the only hub in the southern hemisphere.” Jones said the window of opportunity was open, but everyone knows what happens when windows are not used – they seal shut and can never be opened. “Those decisions need to be made now, including how they do it. In Erwin’s speech he said there’d been enough planning with Coega, now we need to implement those plans.”