APM Terminals has called for substantial investment in port and inland logistics infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa to satisfy the projected demands of some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

According to press reports, it costs approximately seven times more to ship a container from Mombasa, Kenya, to Burundi, in central Africa, than to ship a container from Shanghai to the major Kenyan gateway.

APM Terminals’ commercial director for Inland Services West Africa, Moussa Diop, speaking in Tenerife at the TOC West Africa Market Briefing conference last month, called for improvements in ports, rail, road and inland logistics.

Citing a recent African Development Bank (AfDB) report on African trade, Diop pointed out that while shipping a standard 40′ container from Shanghai to Mombasa, Kenya on the coast of East Africa, costs less than $1 000, moving the same container from Mombasa to the city of Bujumbura, in Burundi, in Central Africa, a distance of approximately 2  000 km, costs $7 000.

 

Original story from FTW Online