Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container carrier in terms of vessel capacity, announced its plans to continue growing its import and export by handling more massive investments in the east African region, which it believes has a great potential.
The multinational German-based logistics company launched the East Africa Service (EAS), which is the first in the region, in April. The weekly service move from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and then directly back to Jeddah. The company is connecting the region to markets in the Far East, Europe, North America, Middle East and India.
According to Dheeraj Bhatia, Managing Director Africa, Middle East and Indian Subcontinent for Hapag-Lloyd AG, the company has been able to outdo its expectations in the region since it introduced the service.
“I am delighted that our EAS service from and to Kenya is developing so positively. After only four months in operation, we have significantly expanded our business with overall vessel utilization beyond our expectations,” he said.
The company accredited its choice of the region on its performance to be the leading region in the continent with annual growth rates of approximately 6%. According to the 2018 African Development Bank East African Economic Outlook report released in Q1 this year, the overall economic performance of the growing East African Market is expected to grow to 6.2% in 2019 from 5.9% in 2017.
The company is most interested in Kenya because it progressed along its successful course-with significantly rising import and export figures as well as massive investments in public
infrastructure.
They also plans to expand the service with additional connections to and from Nhava Sheva and Mundra in India, Khor Fakkan and Jebel Ali in UAE, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. This new service, which is to be dubbed EAS2 will replace the EAS and directly link the Arabian Gulf and the West Coast of India with East Africa.
Hapag-Lloyd also offers inland transportation to and from East African hinterland locations of Bujumbura (Burundi), Kigali (Rwanda), Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of Congo), Lusaka (Zambia) and Kampala (Uganda).
