Goods transport : The port of Kribi goes operational
The ship "Bianca" that left Asia in January this year finally docked at the Kribi Deep Sea Port on Friday, 2 March 2018. The 335-mettre long commercial vessel weighing some 90,000 tonnes with a carrying capacity of 8500 containers offloaded a little more than 500 containers, hardware products, materials for the construction of the African Cup of Nations infrastructure, wood, cars and so on. This is the first time a ship of this size has docked in Cameroon.
The arrival of this ship marks the official launch of the operational and commercial activities of the port of Kribi which is fully functional now and works 24 hours a day. A ship call programme has been made public and features 22 stopovers for the period from March to April 2018. Given its capacity and high draft, the Kribi Deep Sea Port, which is real veritable hub in Africa, will accommodate large-capacity vessels. Ship-owners will no longer run the risk of offloading part of their cargo elsewhere before docking in Cameroon.
As a prelude to this event, the Port Authority of Kribi (PAK), in collaboration with the General Directorate of Customs (DGD), organised and hosted a seminar in Kribi from 15 to 16 February 2018 to popularise procedures for clearing goods at the port. The seminar was attended by maritime and port sector actors. Its objective was to acquaint participants with the simplification of procedures, formalities for clearing goods in the ports of Cameroon and so on. In essence, it aimed at putting in place simple, harmonised, standardised, predictable and transparent procedures for all. A range of measures were also put in place to reduce ships' call time, offer an attractive pricing policy, among others, with the aim of making the facility a high-performance and competitive transhipment port.
(Culled from Cameroon Tribune No. 11549 of 5 March 2018)