Addis Ababa, May 06, 2008 - Formed recently through a decision of the Council of Ministers, the Ethiopian Dry Ports Enterprise is set to have a second dry port built at Semera Town of the Afar Regional State, 558Km to the east of Addis Ababa.

The construction of the dry port will be carried out by the state-owned Water Works Construction Enterprise (WWCE) at a cost of 26 million Br. Getachew Mengiste, state minister of Transport and Communications (MoTC) and Bekele Gadissa, general manager of the enterprise have signed an agreement on May 2, 2008, last Friday.

The dry port, which will be erected on a 100ht plot, is designed to serve as a depot for incoming goods from the northern part of the country. On top of this, the proximity of the area to the port of Djibouti is expected to facilitate the import-export business.

The project includes construction of fences, warehouses, inland roads, container depots and customs offices, insurance companies and maritime transit, and its construction is expected to be completed in January 2008.

This project is one of the two dry port projects planned to be constructed by the federal government. The construction of the dry port at Modjo, the other chosen site, located 73Km east of Addis Abeba in the Oromia Regional State, has been awarded to a joint Ethio-Chinese construction and engineering company named NoRI-LA at a cost of 20 million Br.

Before it embarked on these projects the MoTC has conducted a study in 2006/07 which concluded that the construction of dry ports is very indispensable to facilitate the import-export trade of the country. The dry ports in Modjo and Semera are expected to ease the burden on the congested port of Djibouti.

Demurrage and opportunity costs incurred by Ethiopia due to delay in clearance of goods is partly attributed to the congestion of the port of Djibouti as a result of the increase in the volume of goods imported and exported by Ethiopians, the largest users of the port. Therefore, the construction of these dry ports is expected to alleviate this problem.

The WWCE is also undertaking the huge Tendaho-Kesem Water Dam Project with a reservoir capacity of 2.5 billion metre cube of water.

Source: Addis Fortune