NOTES BY KENYA PORTS AUTHORITY MANAGING DIRECTOR MR. GICHIRI NDUA DURING THE PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE 2010 PORT PERFORMANCE.

Members of the Fourth Estate

Ladies and Gentlemen

I am pleased that you have joined us today to share information on Port performance for the year 2010. I invite you to consider this as our collective Port story. When we spoke last year, we found ourselves more than 12 months into a worldwide economic downturn, operating in a fragile business climate. Experts had already declared 2009 the worst year for maritime industry in history.

Closer home, however, the port has continued to perform well with little effect from the global economic melt-down. I am therefore glad to report that once again, the Port of Mombasa recorded an impressive performance in the year 2010 against the odds of global economic recession.  The port registered traffic growth in almost all the market segments including Container traffic, exports, transit and transshipment sectors.

The Container traffic recorded an impressive performance as the port handled a total of 696,000 TEUs in 2010 up from 619,000 TEUs in 2009, a growth of 12.4 percent. Total exports also increased by 5.1 percent while transshipment rose by 50.4 percent.  Total throughput was somehow subdued by reduced import of grains on account of good harvests.

I am equally glad to announce that our transit market also recorded a significant growth in traffic with a total of 5.4 million tons handled through the port in 2010 up from 5.0 million tons in 2009. This represents a growth of 8.0 percent. Uganda which accounts for almost 70 percent of the transit traffic registered a 6.3 percent growth with a total of 4.2million tons of its cargo passing through Mombasa in 2010 compared to 4.0million tons in 2009. Rwanda has also increased its usage of the port by 49.1 percent followed by D.R. Congo at 15.0 percent.

The new and emerging market of Southern Sudan has registered a growth of 33.5 percent.

The good performance is attributed to the improved efficiency at the terminal with the acquisition of new equipment and continued rolling out newer and updated Information Communication Technology modules - which has improved cargo clearance processes. Consequently, the container dwell time reduced from 6.0 days in 2009 to 5.7 days in 2010 underlining an improved fluidity at the terminal.

However, reduction in imports by 1.9 percent resulted in total cargo throughput of 19.00 million tons in 2010 similar to tonnage realised in 2009. This is particularly attributed to the reduction in import of relief cargo as most of the region experienced good weather.  In essence food production in the region as well as in the country improved compared to 2009 when the country had to import huge quantities of grains to meet the food shortages in the country.

In Marine Operations, the ship turn-round time increased to 4.0 days in 2010 from 3.6 days registered in 2009. This was caused by the ongoing rehabilitation of berths 16-18 with berth 18 out of use for a bigger part of the year. This is however a temporary situation because once the rehabilitation works are completed the berths will be safer and ready to handle more and bigger vessels.

As the global economy is recovering from the recent recession, the regional economies as well as international trade is expected to grow. This calls for concrete measures to create capacity as well as improve efficiency. We have transformed the Port of Mombasa from a single link in the supply chain to a driving force in delivering and leveraging supply chain for maritime industry in Kenya and the entire region. We have since witnessed successful collaboration with cargo freight stations in handling of containers and we will continue to focus on increasing efficiency and reliability.

The Authority has lined up a number of projects towards vital infrastructure investment and equipment upgrading to expand capacity to accommodate future growth. These include purchase of 3 Ship-to-Shore gantries, 2 Mobile Harbour cranes, 10 Terminal Tractors, and 4 Reach Stackers. In December 2010, we received 10 Rubber Tyred Gantry cranes which have already started working at the terminal bringing our total complement to 22. Two weeks ago we received 2 mooring boats from Damen Shipyard of Holland to boost our marine operations.

With the support of Government M/s Van Oord of Netherlands was retained to undertake dredging of the channel and turning basins. Plans are also in the final stages for the construction of the second container terminal and the extension of the existing terminal to berth 19. All these three projects are underway.

The projects are all geared towards creating more capacity, improve efficiency and make the port a regional hub moving towards becoming a world class sea port of choice. Ultimately, reliability is essential, and it is reliability that we wish to assure our stakeholders and port users through proper asset utilization, effective delivery of service, constant consultations thereby creating necessary partnerships for moving our port forward and contribute towards economic growth of the region.

As you have hopefully already concluded, our shared experiences reveal that we’re already part of each other’s story, and we are integral to each other’s success.  As I conclude, I urge you to reinforce our mutual relations and endeavour to push us on to deliver higher quality services and sustainable solutions to emerging challenges.

I thank you for your kind attention.

 4th May,2011.