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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
Côte d'Ivoire has no natural, sheltered deepwater
harbors.
Until 1950 all imports had to be offloaded at sea onto
lighters
that either crossed the surf and landed on a beach or, as
at GrandBassam and Sassandra, unloaded at a wharf that extended
beyond the
surf. In 1950 the 2.7-kilometer Vridi Canal, which cut
through the
barrier island south of Abidjan, was completed, linking
the Gulf of
Guinea with the Ebrié Lagoon. Until port facilities at
Abidjan were
completed, lighters were still required to unload cargo,
but by
1955 all port operations were handled at dockside.
By the 1970s, Abidjan was the largest port in West
Africa. The
amount of cargo handled grew from 5 million tons in 1970
to 9.5
million tons in 1986, a large proportion of which was
containerized. Abidjan had 5,485 meters of quays
representing 35
berths, 105,000 square meters of warehouse space, a quay
with
refrigeration installations for the fishing industry, and
twelve
specialized quays for bananas, fish, timber, cement,
hydrocarbons,
tankers, and roll-on roll-off cargo operations. In 1987
the
government enlarged the Abidjan port, adding two new quays
in
Locodjo across the lagoon from the city.
To stimulate development in the southwest and reduce
the cost
of transporting raw materials to Abidjan, the government
constructed a second deepwater port at San-Pédro. The
San-Pédro
project, which represented a major governmental effort to
exploit
the timber, cocoa, coffee, rubber, and palm oil production
planned
for the southwest and the iron ore mines farther north,
included
road building and development of an urban infrastructure.
The port
with two large quays began operating in 1971, but because
the iron
ore project was dropped and timber production for the
region was
less than the amount anticipated, the San-Pédro port
handled far
less than its planned capacity. In 1984 cargo amounted to
approximately 1.3 million tons, or 14 percent of all
maritime
commerce. In 1984 Abidjan and San-Pédro handled a total of
9.7
million tons of cargo.
Côte d'Ivoire had two merchant marine companies flying
the
national flag: SITRAM and the Ivoirian Maritime Navigation
Company
(Société Ivoirienne de Navigation Maritime--SIVOMAR), with
a
combined total of twenty cargo ships. The former company
was state
owned; the latter was privately owned.
Data as of November 1988
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