SWAKOPMUND, 10 APR (NAMPA) - The capacity of the Port of Walvis Bay is expected to increase as a result of ongoing investment projects, thus greater attention is required in managing international logistics sustainably.
This is to ensure that Namibia becomes a logistics hub for the Southern African Development Community region by 2025.
The first ever Namibia State of Logistics (NSoL) Report for 2018 released by the Walvis Bay Corridor Group on Tuesday said the growth trajectory of the main components of the gross domestic product more or less followed a similar path.
It indicated that 2018 throughput at the Port of Walvis Bay showed improvement of volumes in September, surpassing 2017 figures by 6 159 metric tonnes.
This represents a significant increase of 9.2 per cent from 66 769 tonnes in September 2017 to 72 928 tonnes in September 2018.
Namibia's performance in areas such as trade, community involvement, documents, automation and information availability improved over the 2015-2017 period, although there was a decline in appeals procedures as well as in governance and impartiality based on the trade facilitation indicators, it indicated.
The report also highlighted that the Port of Walvis Bay handled 93.1 per cent of total cargo (gross tonnage) transiting to and from neighbouring countries in 2017 with Zambia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana and Zimbabwe being the main markets for transit cargo by volume.
Zambia was the dominant market for transit cargo and accounted for 51.8 per cent of all inbound transit cargo via the port in 2017, up from 47.9 per cent in 2016, which represents a 50.9 per cent increase in the volume of imports to that country.
Similarly, Zambian exports comprising mostly copper and wood products accounted for 85.7 per cent of total outbound transit cargo by volume (metric tonnes), up from 72.5 per cent in 2016.
The report also said Namibia?s track railway network transports approximately 1.2 billion tonnes of cargo annually.
SOURCE: NAMPA - IB/EK/AS
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