Road corridors pump up Walvis Bay volumes

Capacity to be increased Kevin Mayhew THE INCREASE in container cargo resulting from strengthening of ties with South Africa, Zambia and even Angola has forced the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport) to extend its container handling and storage capacity. Namport sales and service manager, Johny Smith, says they are in the process of planning a new road which will service a new container facility. “We have successfully increased use of Walvis Bay through our active marketing via the Walvis Bay Corridor Group (WBCG) and must now provide an infrastructure that justifies importers and exporters’ faith in us,” he said. He said the new facility would increase the container handling capacity of the port by about a third of its present capacity of 150 000 containers per annum. He attributed the increase to the impact of the two major road corridors that form part of the Walvis Bay Corridor, the Trans-Kalahari and Trans-Caprivi Corridors. “These have been instrumental in the growth of our volumes. But another significant factor is that we provide a world class facility with fewer hiccups than the South African ports and shorter access periods to the markets of Europe and South America,” he explained. He added that the port was also busy handling increased transhipments from South America for both Angola and South America. Major opportunities exist in Angola, particularly as the traffic can now go through Oshikango into Angola.