Malawi secures 99-yearleasehold at Nacala Port
The Malawi Government has secured a 99-year lease agreement with Mozambique to develop a terminal at Nacala Port.
Government officials as well as transport and logistical experts say the arrangement will boost traffic of cargo on the Nacala Corridor.
According to World Cargo and the Maritime News, Malawi secured the lease at the deepest port in southern Africa for the construction and operation of a terminal, which will create a more cost-effective logistics framework, improving trade and enhanced economic development.
The deal comes at a time Malawi has failed to effectively utilise a similar opportunity through the Malawi Cargo Centre (MCC) in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
It also comes two years after the 2021 Baseline, Mid-term and Endline Surveys of selected Malawi trade corridors showed that the country’s cargo is mostly handled in Beira and Durban ports, with Nacala and Dar es Salaam ports far behind although Nacala is at nearest distance of 799 kilometres.
Reads the study in part: “The Nacala Corridor ranks first in terms of average transport cost at $2 585 [about K4.5 million] per TEU [20-foot equivalent unit], which is 70 percent the cost of the Beira Corridor, 66 percent the cost of the Dar es Salaam Corridor and 25 percent the cost of the Durban Corridor.
“Nonetheless, in spite of this cost advantage the Nacala Corridor still only attracts about 10 percent of Malawi cargo.”
Speaking in an interview on Wednesday, Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu, who is also government spokesperson, said the agreement is similar to the one it has with Tanzania.
He said: “The benefits are that we will be able to build storage facilities, which is the current problem at Nacala.
“This way we can dock and offload larger vessels which are much cheaper.”
Commenting on the development, freight expert at MPK Freight Louis Uko commended the agreement, saying it will be beneficial to the economy.
He said it will be easy to fuse the distance advantage of the route with emerging opportunities such as direct access to a sea, thereby streamlining customs clearance and reducing congestion.
Nacala Port director Neimo Induna told journalists at Nacala Port last week that the port can handle 10 million tonnes of cargo per year, but said its utilisation capacity is at 40 percent.
“The equipment is new and we don’t have limitations in terms of how much cargo the port can handle and operations are 24 hours,” he said.
