President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday launched a Sh30 billion container terminal at the Port of Mombasa Port in a move that is believed to target bettering local and international trade.
As part of the government’s attempts to upgrade the terminal, the Saturday event came as the first phase of the second container terminal project planned for the port.
The president revealed that for trade to flourish in Kenya, his government has embarked on treating ports with the vital attention they require as they will help the country sell her products especially from the recently discovered petroleum resources.
“Kenya itself discovered oil in Turkana and intends to export its first shipment in June 2017,” he said.
The new terminal has the capacity to handle fourth generation vessels of 6,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) capacity.
Mr Kenyatta further revealed that sea trade accounted for nearly all the international cargo transacted across countries and that the country therefore needed to invest more in seaports.
“In truth, the import of this project cannot be gainsaid. International trade records show that over 90 per cent of the world’s cargo is transported by sea. Ports are therefore critical to the economic growth of any country,” Uhuru said.