Sea Rail Botswana is in the process of constructing a 3000-square-metre under-roof storage shed within its dry port facility at the Port of Wa lv i s Bay.
According to acting managing director Derick Mokgatle, the company also commissioned a reefer station in December last year with 48 plug-in points for perishable cargo.
“The new shed construction is on schedule and will be completed by the end of November this year within the dry port, increasing our capacity significantly.”
Mokgatle said the warehousing developments currently taking place had all been in progress prior to the outbreak of Covid-19. “This pandemic will have severe consequences as investors are going to tread far more carefully when it comes to new investments until this pandemic is under control and financiers have more confidence in economic growth going forward.”
He said the Covid-19 regulations, policies and restrictions that had been introduced had disrupted supply chains globally and were proving to be a hindrance to the f low of goods, while contributing significantly to the increased cost of transport and logistics. “There’s been a decline in volumes of imports and exports due to the lockdowns.”
According to Mokgatle there is still room for more warehousing developments in strategic corridor nodes in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.“We foresee the emergence of more dry port developments regionally as part of the counter measures to lessen the effects of lockdowns in the future.
Once the Covid-19 pandemic is under control, international trade will pick up and there will be a demand for more warehousing and depot space.”Mokgatle said growth in the digitising of facilities would also drive increased warehouse capacity.
“E-commerce will be the new way of doing business and that will require more distribution networks as well as warehouse space to provide fast and efficient services to end-users.”The adoption of automated systems and technology that integrate both warehouses and players in the supply chain – including customs authority systems – would be more prevalent going forward, he said.“International players are already more advanced in automated warehousing systems. The adoption of international standards in the business culture will happen more and more.”