By Bilal Abdul-aziz
5th November 2011
Zanzibar
President Dr Ali Mohamed Shein has said that an ambitious plan to build a new
port in Zanzibar “is on course” in an effort to open up businesses to the
outside world and provide the Isles economy an important gateway.
Addressing Zanzibaris through
editors and reporters from different media houses to reflect on one year of his
rule here on Thursday, Dr Shein said a comprehensive study for the giant
project had been completed.
“The plan to build the envisaged new
port has reached an advanced stage…we are done with feasibility study at the
moment,” the Isles leader said in a press conference which lasted over five
hours.
He said China, through a competent
firm in port construction, would help Zanzibar implement the project.
According to him, the new port will
help a great deal in opening up the Zanzibar economy to the outside world
through effective and efficient transportation of goods as well as passengers
unlike the present time.
For many years now, the current
Zanzibar main port, Malindi, has been not competitive compared to similar
gateways along the Indian Ocean coast, such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.
Just last month, the East African
Community (EAC) secretariat announced that plans were underway to improve
efficiency of all ports in its partner states.
The Secretariat said the current
duration of cargo clearance has led to increased costs of doing business in the
region. Implementation of the plan is due to begin in the first half of next
year, which essentially involves the rolling out of a regional single-window system
in all ports and borders to ease cargo clearance.
The system will merge all existing
partner states' national single-window systems and cut cargo clearance from a
statutory period of 48 hours to only three hours.
EAC executive bodies have already secured
a grant from the United States International Development Agency (USAID) for the
development of the system.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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