Kenya’s port of Mombasa handled 9.54 million tons in the first three months this year, up 10.7 percent year on year, Rashid Salim, acting managing director of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) said on Thursday.



Rashid Salim said that the country’s main port also witnessed increased volumes in container traffic between January and March, registering 389,515 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) against 340,812 TEUs recorded in the similar period in 2020.

“Transshipment traffic recorded 69,658 TEUs against 41,363 TEUs during the corresponding period in 2020,” Salim noted that total imports through the Mombasa port for the first quarter hit 162,504 TEUs, up from 151,998 TEUs in the corresponding period in 2020, registering a growth of 6.9 percent.

“Equally, exports registered an upsurge by 6.8 percent from 146,049 TEUs in 2020 to 156,007 TEUs during the similar period in 2021,” he revealed.

The port of Mombasa’s performance registered a marked growth in March in both conventional and containerized cargo.

“A total of 3.48 million tons were recorded in the month of March 2021 against 2.71 million tons realized in the corresponding month in 2020, representing a positive performance of 768,453 tons or 28.4 percent,” he noted.

Salim said that the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) transported 25,104 TEUs of cargo from the port in March, which is an average of 8.32 trains per day, beating the daily record average of 8.1 trains recorded in February.