WB drives home its alternative gateway message

The Walvis Bay Corridor Group (WBCG) has reaffirmed its commitment to making Walvis Bay a key logistics and distribution hub for southern Africa by 2025. “Currently the closest overseas market to South African ports is 20 days by sea. Brazil can ship to Walvis Bay within seven days,” said Johny Smith, CEO of WBCG, speaking at the group’s Beyond Borders event in Johannesburg last week. He noted that government and other key transport-related industry stakeholders were working with the WBCG to kick up logistics infrastructure to the point where Walvis Bay is globally competitive. Namibia’s national carrier, Air Namibia, has become a recent WBCG member and supports the 2025 objective. “Our biggest competitive advantage is our quick time to markets – currently it is no more than six days’ transit time from Walvis Bay to the furthest southern African countries, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Smith, adding that the port, road and rail corridor network developments would further reduce the transit times. “Walvis Bay has also significantly increased its direct sailings from important global markets, including Europe, the Far East, North America and the Middle East,” he said. Elias Mwenyo, marketing manager, sales and services for the Namibian Port Authority (Namport), noted that the Port of Walvis Bay would be equipped to handle one million TEUs by 2025. He added that by 2020 rail links to all neighbouring countries would be established. The new R3-billion container terminal will open by 2017. The Transkalahari Corridor Secretariat (TKCS) has also made progress in its efforts to reduce transit times and up efficiencies along road corridors, said TKCS marketing and business development specialist, Zunaid Pochee. “We have seen a 60% increase in freight traffic along the corridors over the past 14 years,” he said. Pochee added the organisation had made “great progress” with key initiatives such as one-stop border posts, dedicated truck stops and an automated corridor monitoring system. CAPTION Ambitious partners … Elias Mwenyo (Namport), Segodi Mogotsi (Department of Transport), Siobhan Fox, Johny Smith and Zunaid Pochee of WBCG.