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Multi-million dollar deal being finalised for a new port at Berbera to serve the African and Arab trade hub.
Somaliland is finalising a multi-million dollar deal with a leading international operator to develop a port at Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden reports All Africa.
The breakaway state is aiming to boost its efforts to serve as a trade hub between Africa and the Arab States and an export gateway for landlocked Ethiopia.
Negotiations have been going on for the last six months with an agreement now on the table from one of the world’s best port operators, says All Africa.
Envoy for the state’s bid for independence, Jason McCue, who is assembling investors to grow the coastal town of Berbera into a $2.5bn logistics hub, declined to comment on the size of the port investment, but says it would constitute the single biggest inflow of foreign direct investment in Somaliland's 22 year history.
“We are talking hundreds of millions,” he said. “That port will become a major international port.”
Ethiopia currently has annual exports worth around $1bn, led by coffee and gold.
Kuwait recently spent $10m reinvigorating the nation's two airports, and the government in Hargeisa has plans to develop road networks and an oil pipeline to service the export needs of Ethiopia.
It is hoped the new port will compete with Djibouti, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, where ships can wait weeks to unload their cargo due to bottlenecks.
“We want to develop the corridor between Berbera and Ethiopia because that is really the lifeline,” says Somaliland's foreign minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis.
“We are all aiming at Ethiopia and we believe that we could provide support to a third of the population of Ethiopia.”
