Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding are collaborating on a ¥7.2 billion (US$ 64 million) project to supply 16 cranes for the second stage of Kenya's Mombasa Port project.
The project for the largest commercial port in East Africa is expected to be completed in 2020 and is being funded through the Japan International Cooperation Agency's Special Terms for Economic Partnership (STEP) loan program.
Toyota Tsusho, the trading arm of the Toyota Group, signed the contract with the Kenya Ports Authority, which operates under the Republic of Kenya’s Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development.
Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding will be in charge of manufacturing four gantry cranes for quayside operations and 12 transfer cranes for yard operations.
The crane types are the same as those delivered in Phase 1 of the port development project, which expanded the port’s goods handling capacity from 720,000 TEU to 1.3 million TEU in 2016.
Work on the second phase of the terminal project aims to expand the port’s capacity by 450,000 TEU.
Phase 2 of Mombasa Port Development:
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By 2025, Mombasa Port is scheduled to increase to approximately 2.4 million TEU.
As Kenya’s only international trading port and the largest port in the region, Mombasa Port wants to raise its competitiveness by reducing vessel lay time through faster cargo handling operations.
It is a gateway to Uganda, Rwanda and other East African nations.
The port is the launching point for a wide range of goods flowing into Kenya and the surrounding region through the East Africa Northern Corridor, including container goods, wheat and other grains, fuel, iron and other metal products, as well as automobiles.
In 2012, Toyota Tsusho became the first Japanese company to sign a comprehensive memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kenya to support its Kenya Vision 2030, a long-term national planning strategy for industrial development, and has since signed contract on many initiatives to contribute to advance Kenya’s economy.
