ZIM Line plans big investment in Mombasa

ZIM INTEGRATED Shipping Services is delivering on its promise to expand its Southern African focus. Zim Kenya Shipping Line will spend R1.3m (Kshs 12 million) on the construction of a new container freight station at Miritini in the Changamwe area of Mombasa. On a recent visit to Mombasa, ZISS managing director for Africa, Elil Aviv, said the CFS would be served by an 8-kilometre railway which the company would also build. The line has proposed that the Kenya Ports Authority consider mid-stream cargo operations through use of barges which would help to avoid congestion. Aviv also put in a request for dedicated berths for Zim Line vessels in view of the many vessel calls they envisaged as East Africa trade grows. Kenya Ports Authority managing director Abdallah Mwaruwa said the port was growing fast to cope with trade expansion in the region. “Mombasa is building a 1.2 million teu capacity second container terminal and welcomes the Zim Line initiative.” He promised to fast-track Customs approval. The requests for dedicated berths and operation of midstream cargo operations needed to be submitted as proposals and would be analysed by the KPA, he added. Aviv visited the port with Zim’s vice chief executive officer, Rafi Danieli, who said the line had brought the first container box to Mombasa in 1975. The setting up of a ZIM Africa super-district office in Johannesburg in April last year was a concerted move by ZIM to focus on the region. At the time, Boaz Arkin, Haifa-based managing director Europe and Africa of ZISS, told FTW: “We were one of the first lines to bring containerisation to the continent, but we’ve neglected it over the past ten years. That will change with our new strategic focus.”