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Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) signed a$154 million contract with a Chinese firm for the designing, construction, deepening and strengthening of the Dar es Salaam Port, reports the Daily News.

The 36-month will upgrade the Port’s berths to enable it to receive large cargo ships, enabling it to compete favorably with the rest of the ports along the Indian Ocean coast. The first phase of project implementation, the government expects to spend 336bn/- (154 million USD).

The Dar es Salaam Port currently competes with Mombasa in East Africa region, Beira in Mozambique and others in South Africa.

“Deepening and strengthening of the berths will allow big container ships to dock in Dar es Salaam. All these efforts are being done in order to increase competitiveness of the port,” Tanzania’s Works, Transport And Communications Minister Makame Mbarawa said at the signing of the contract.

Prof Makame Mbarawa added that the government will speed up the implementation of other mega infrastructure projects such as railways and roads to speed up the clearing and transportation of cargo from the Port to the respective destinations.

Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) Director General, Eng Deusdedit Kakoko said 421 million US dollars will be raised to cover the whole project out of which 345milion US dollars will be provided by the World Bank as a soft loan.

The business community has commended the upgrading of the seven berths of Dar es Salaam Port since the East African government also recently removed the Value Added Tax (VAT) on transit goods.

Dar es Salaam Port currently clears cargo destined for Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Tanzania hopes expansion of the port will increase container throughput to 28 million tonnes a year by 2020 from around 20 million tonnes currently according to the Standard.

China Habour Engineering Company Limited (CHEC) will expand the country’s main port in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.