The Dar es Salaam port is the Central Corridor’s gateway to/from the sea and hence the global markets. It plays a critical role in ensuring the smooth flow of imports and exports to/from the Member States.
Between 2016 and 2019 the total cargo throughput at the port of Dar es Salaam has gradually increased with cargo volumes having grown by 2.1% between 2018 and 2019.
This marked improvement is mainly attributed to enhanced effectiveness and efficiency on cargo handling and operational management.
While there is improvement in the cargo throughput along the corridor, the cost and time to move goods to the landlocked countries has not significantly improved. This has been compounded by the collapse of the rail-lake intermodal transport operations and the general underdevelopment of cargo logistics infrastructure and services along many segments of the Central Corridor.
As a result, the CCTTFA Member States incur abnormally high costs of transport and cargo logistics and have to contend with long delays in cargo delivery to/from the Dar es Salaam port. This exerts a heavy burden on production and hinders access of regional exports to global markets thus impacting negatively on the region’s economic competitiveness.