November 28, 2005 (Business Africa) – The Doraleh oil and petroleum terminal will be formally inaugurated this month. The sea-side construction began limited operations in mid-September, while the land-side is expected to be finished by March 2006. Construction of the Doraleh container terminal is due to start by year-end, with the facility becoming operational by 2007. The port authority is optimistic that these investments will reverse the decline in traffic volumes suffered last year at Djibouti port, since it attributes much of the loss of transshipment business to congestion in the area.

There is some concern in Ethiopia at its dependence on the port of Djibouti , and the Ethiopian government is taking steps to increase its use of Berbera port in Somaliland—plans to build a new road between Berbera and eastern Ethiopia have been put forward by the Ethiopian authorities. The EU has already supported some investment to improve facilities in the port in order to use Berbera to import aid supplies. In addition, the Kenyan government is investing heavily in its section of the road between Addis Ababa and Mombasa with the help of a US$51.6m loan from the African Development Fund.

Copyright © 2005 Economist Intelligence Unit