The routes, dubbed the Gulf Indian-subcontinent Africa service (GIA) and the Africa Far-East Asia service (AFA), will dock in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, connecting the two regional gateways to southern Asia and the Far East.
The GIA service will offer direct scheduled weekly sailings from the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East to East Africa, cutting regional connections and transit times to the countries served by Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. GIA vessels will call at India’s Nhava Sheva port, and Karachi in Pakistan before proceeding to Dubai’s Jebel Ali and then through to East Africa.
The AFA service, on its part, will connect the orient to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and serve such major Chinese export facilities as Xingang, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo and Hong Kong. Southern Asia will be connected to East Africa through connections in Singapore and Port Klang in Malaysia.
In total, six vessels of 1100 twenty-foot equivalent units (Teu) capacity will be deployed for the two services. The two routes will be operated in partnership with TS Line, with the latter providing one vessel, and Emirates Shipping Line providing five.
“These two new services signify a further commitment from Emirates Shipping Line as it expands its service portfolio to better serve customer needs,” said Vikas Khan, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Shipping Line in a statement.
“Our new services target the high growth areas in East Africa, which are important to our overall strategy,” he added.
Launch of the two services comes at a time of double-digit growth of trade between Asian economies, especially China, India and Malaysia and East Africa. The trade has been boosted by China’s thirst for raw materials, as well as the country’s export of cheap machinery and consumer goods to the region.
The Mombasa port container terminal’s handling equipment was brought from Zhenhua Port Machinery Company of China less than two years ago. Last year, Kenyan imports from China stood at 379,000 tonnes while exports weighed 18,000 tonnes.
Three weeks ago, in an indicator of the developing trade relations between Asia and East Africa, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and China’s Tianjin Port entered into a partnership to improve trade, traffic and services between their respective ports. Tianjin Port, China’s fifth largest port, is ranked 16th among the top 100 container ports in the world with a throughput of 4.8 Teus.
Despite the overall positive picture, however, growth in the cargo passing through Dar es Salaam and Mombasa has led to episodic congestion, leading to complaints by exporters and importers. It also spurred efforts to modernise operations.
Early this month, for example, the government granted KPA permission to commence a four-year $51 million project to deepen and widen the port of Mombasa to enable it handle bigger vessels.
The project, to be completed in 2010, will be implemented alongside construction of a second container terminal at the port. The container terminal is expected to cost $291 million.
Last week, the port of Dar es Salaam commissioned two heavy duty cranes worth $6 million as part of a modernisation drive meant to limit congestion. The port has also recently installed mobile grain bagging plants each with a capacity of filling 120 tonnes an hour to facilitate the offloading of grains and fertilizers at the port.
The GIA service will offer direct scheduled weekly sailings from the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East to East Africa, cutting regional connections and transit times to the countries served by Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. GIA vessels will call at India’s Nhava Sheva port, and Karachi in Pakistan before proceeding to Dubai’s Jebel Ali and then through to East Africa.
The AFA service, on its part, will connect the orient to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and serve such major Chinese export facilities as Xingang, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo and Hong Kong. Southern Asia will be connected to East Africa through connections in Singapore and Port Klang in Malaysia.
In total, six vessels of 1100 twenty-foot equivalent units (Teu) capacity will be deployed for the two services. The two routes will be operated in partnership with TS Line, with the latter providing one vessel, and Emirates Shipping Line providing five.
“These two new services signify a further commitment from Emirates Shipping Line as it expands its service portfolio to better serve customer needs,” said Vikas Khan, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Shipping Line in a statement.
“Our new services target the high growth areas in East Africa, which are important to our overall strategy,” he added.
Launch of the two services comes at a time of double-digit growth of trade between Asian economies, especially China, India and Malaysia and East Africa. The trade has been boosted by China’s thirst for raw materials, as well as the country’s export of cheap machinery and consumer goods to the region.
The Mombasa port container terminal’s handling equipment was brought from Zhenhua Port Machinery Company of China less than two years ago. Last year, Kenyan imports from China stood at 379,000 tonnes while exports weighed 18,000 tonnes.
Three weeks ago, in an indicator of the developing trade relations between Asia and East Africa, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and China’s Tianjin Port entered into a partnership to improve trade, traffic and services between their respective ports. Tianjin Port, China’s fifth largest port, is ranked 16th among the top 100 container ports in the world with a throughput of 4.8 Teus.
Despite the overall positive picture, however, growth in the cargo passing through Dar es Salaam and Mombasa has led to episodic congestion, leading to complaints by exporters and importers. It also spurred efforts to modernise operations.
Early this month, for example, the government granted KPA permission to commence a four-year $51 million project to deepen and widen the port of Mombasa to enable it handle bigger vessels.
The project, to be completed in 2010, will be implemented alongside construction of a second container terminal at the port. The container terminal is expected to cost $291 million.
Last week, the port of Dar es Salaam commissioned two heavy duty cranes worth $6 million as part of a modernisation drive meant to limit congestion. The port has also recently installed mobile grain bagging plants each with a capacity of filling 120 tonnes an hour to facilitate the offloading of grains and fertilizers at the port.