Dar es Salaam port expansion

World Bank to fund $305 million expansion works.

The port at Dar es Salaam is to go under a major expansion thanks to Tanzania's $305 million loan from the World Bank.

The works are designed to increase the capacity and competitiveness of the port which in recent years has suffered from congestion and inefficiency.

The loan was agreed following negotiations between the World Bank's vice president for Africa, Makhtar Diop, and Tanzania's president John Magufuli, who is known as “The Bulldozer” due to his drive for infrastructural projects.

The transformation of Dar es Salaam port is part of Magufuli's ambitions to turn Tanzania into a regional transport hub, with plans to increase the port's capacity to 28 million tons a year by 2020 from its current annual 15 million tons.

The World Bank published a recent report stating that inefficiencies at Dar es Salaam port were costing Tanzania and its neighbours up to $2.6 billion a year.

Dar es Salaam port is the second-largest in east Africa after Mombasa in neighbouring Kenya to the north.