Good tides as Mombasa port revenues increase to Sh33.7 billion

Cargo ship waits for offloading at the Port of Mombasa. March 21, 2024. [Omondi Onyango,Standard]

Kenya Ports Authority has collected Sh33.7 billion as revenue in the last six months as transit cargo grew by 11 per cent in the last financial year.

KPA managing director Captain William Ruto said the revenue collected compared to Sh27 billion registered during the same period in 2023.

"In terms of revenue collection, revenue is also doing very well and I can tell you the first half of the year we have been able to post Sh33.7 billion compared to Sh27 billion collected at the same period last year," said Ruto.

Captain Ruto spoke while launching KPA 2023 annual review and bulletin of statistics at the authority headquarters in Mombasa.

Ruto said there was growth in transit cargo which he attributed to efficiency and installation of new equipment at the port.

"We want to appreciate our transit market customers for having confidence in the port of Mombasa and we commit ourselves that we will always strive to do our best in our performance and efficiency," said Ruto.

He said transit cargo posted a remarkable growth of 11.5 per cent and recorded 11.41 million metric tonnes in 2023 against 10.23 million metric tonnes in 2022.

Ruto said container traffic had gone up by 11.9 per cent from 1.45 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (Teus) in 2022 to 1.62 million Teus in 2023.

He said the number of ships calling at Mombasa port had also gone up by six percent, showing that more port users preferred the port to other ports along the coast of East Africa.

He said since the number of ships calling at Mombasa port had gone up from 1,561 in 2022 to 1,835 in 2023.

"Despite the elevated risk on global production, the port performance showed a remarkable resilience with cargo throughput growing by 6.2 percent from 33.8 million metric tonnes in 2022 to 35.98 million metric tonnes in 2023.The positive performance was mainly due to an increase in handling containerised cargo by 2.33 million metric tonnes," said Ruto.

He explained that the rise in containerised cargo has been consistent across the year with notable record witnessed last May at 155,204 Teus and last December at 152,326 Teus respectively.

He said the increase in containerised goods passing through Mombasa port was an indication that there was strong good economic performance in the region. [Willis Oketch]