(Business in Cameroon) – The Container Terminal Authority (RTC) at the Port Authority of Douala (PAD) plans to acquire five new cranes. Cyrus Ngo’o, Director General of PAD, announced this on January 2, 2025, during a visit to the container terminal.
The cost of acquiring the five cranes, including two quay cranes and three Rubber Tyred Gantry (RTG) cranes, has not been disclosed. However, based on projections from the eight RTGs purchased for CFA12 billion in 2023 by RTC, the cost of these five cranes is expected to be less than CFA10 billion. These cranes will be deployed at the new Quai 16, where construction work is expected to begin in the coming days.
The work is part of the Container Terminal expansion project, which includes the construction of an additional 250 meters of quay, the development of 7.9 hectares of land for back storage, and the creation of 1,200 meters of additional land access roads. Once completed, these developments will increase the total length of the terminal to at least 1,000 meters.
“This is about anticipating future growth. The evolution of trade shows that over the next ten years, the volume handled at the Port of Douala will increase,” said Cyrus Ngo’o. The project, valued at CFA47.2 billion, was awarded in December 2022 to the French company Negri, with a 30-month execution period. These new cranes will add to the 12 existing cranes at PAD, including the eight RTGs purchased in 2023, bringing the total number of cranes at the Port of Douala to 17. According to PAD, these new cranes will help RTC increase its capacity from handling 380,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2024 to one million containers by 2030.
For the PAD Director General, “The outlook for the container terminal at Douala Port is promising after the commitments and results achieved over the past five years.” Between 2019 and 2024, the terminal has generated a cumulative revenue of CFA277 billion, paid CFA90 billion in royalties to PAD, and invested CFA58 billion in a ten-year investment project totaling CFA89 billion, with a completion rate of 65%.
Despite its success, RTC still faces challenges in modernizing its operations, reducing costs, and improving the speed of goods handling, according to port stakeholders. To address these issues, Edwin Fongod Nuvaga, the Director General of Customs, emphasized the importance of digitizing procedures and improving service quality.
