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Agency says SGR freight business is picking up

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Standard Gauge Railway locomotives at the port of Mombasa. Photo | Kevin Odit | NMG

The volume of cargo transported using the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is on the rise, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) says.

Managing director Catherine Mturi-Wairi said some 671 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) containers were delivered up-country by rail last week, an increase of 233 TEUs compared to the previous week.

“As you are aware, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) commenced freight services to the Inland Container Depot Nairobi (ICD). We have started seeing an increase in the usage of standard Gauge rail services,” she said Sunday in a speech during the KPA corporate golf tournament in Machakos.

“This development is aimed at bringing services closer to the customer and also decongesting the roads.”

There has been concern over low volume of cargo transported through the SGR as importers shied away from the train service.

They have also cried foul over a directive to transport all cargo coming in through port of Mombasa via SGR to Nairobi’s ICD in Embakasi.

READ: Government defends forced use of SGR - VIDEO

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Port activity

Ms Mturi-Wairi said Mombasa port had recorded a significant increase in total cargo throughout with a growth of 10.9 per cent from 27.36 million tonnes in 2016 to 30.35 million tonnes in 2017.

Container traffic 98,586 TEUs rose from from 1.091 million TEUs handled in 2016 to 1.190 million TEUs in 2017.

“On the other hand, transit cargo had a notable increase in performance from 7.75 million tonnes in 2016 to 8.64 million tonnes in 2017, posting a growth of 11.5 per cent,” she said.

Imports grew by 10.8 per cent to record 25.60 million tonnes of cargo in 2017 up from 23.12 million tonnes in 2016.

Coffee drove exports traffic to 3.79 million tonnes in 2017 against 3.66 million tonnes in 2016, a growth of 3.6 per cent.

“The marginal increase was mainly supported by Coffee which increased by 33.3 per cent and tea by 4.1 per cent,” the KPA boss said.

Ms Mturi-Wairi said the building of Phase II of the 2nd Container terminal is expected to start in June, increasing capacity by 450,000 TEUs.

Relocation of the Kipevu Oil Terminal is to also start in June.

The facility will handle four vessels at a time and will have underwater pipelines to link with the KPC storage tanks.

The MD said Lamu Port is ow 42 per cent complete.