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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
In 1990 Sudan had only one operational deep-water harbor,
Port Sudan, situated on an inlet of the Red Sea. The port had
been built from scratch, beginning in 1905, to complement the
railroad line from Khartoum to the Red Sea by serving as the
entry and exit point for the foreign trade the rail line was to
carry. It operated as a department of SRC until 1974 when it was
transferred to the Sea Ports Corporation, a newly established
public enterprise set up to manage Sudan's marine ports.
Facilities at the port eventually included fifteen cargo berths,
sheds, warehouses, and storage tanks for edible oils, molasses,
and petroleum products. Equipment included quay, mobile, and
other cranes, and some forklift trucks, but much of the handling
of cargo was manual. There were also a number of tugboats, which
were used to berth ships in the narrow inlet.
During the early 1970s, port traffic averaged about 3 million
tons a year, compared with an overall capacity of about 3.8
million tons. Exports were somewhat more than 1 million tons and
imports about 2 million tons; about half of the latter was
petroleum and petroleum products. By the mid-1970s, stepped up
economic development had raised traffic to capacity levels. In
1985, however, largely as a result of the civil war, exports were
down to 663 thousand tons (down 51 percent from the previous
year) and imports were 2.3 million tons (down 25 percent from the
previous year). Physical expansion of the harbor and adjacent
areas was generally precluded by natural features and the
proximity of the city of Port Sudan. However, surveys showed that
use could be increased considerably by modernization and
improvement of existing facilities and the addition of further
cargo-handling equipment. In 1978, with the assistance of a loan
from the IDA, work began on adding deep-water berths and
providing roll-on-roll-off container facilities. A loan to
purchase equipment was made by a West Germany body. The first
phase was completed in 1982, and the second phase began in 1983,
aided by a US$25-million World Bank credit. One of the major
improvements has been to make the port more readily usable by
road vehicles. Developed almost entirely as a rail-serviced
facility, the port had large areas of interlacing railroad tracks
that were mostly not flush with surrounding surfaces, thereby
greatly restricting vehicular movement. Many of these tracks have
been removed and new access roads constructed. Much of the
cleared area has become available for additional storage
facilities.
In the early 1980s, the Nimeiri government announced a plan
to construct a new deep-water port at Sawakin, about twenty
kilometers south of Port Sudan. Construction of a new port had
long been under consideration in response to the projected growth
of port traffic in the latter part of the twentieth century. A
detailed study for the proposed port was made by a West German
firm in the mid-1970s, and plans were drawn up for three general
cargo berths, including roll-on-roll-off container facilities,
and an oil terminal. Major funding for the port, known as
Sawakin, was offered in 1985 by West Germany's development agency
Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and the DFC. After the Nimeiri
government repeatedly postponed work on the port, the German
government allocated the funds instead for purchase of
agricultural inputs. Once work resumed, however, Sawakin port
opened in January 1991, and was capable of handling an estimated
1.5 million tons of cargo a year.
A national merchant marine, Sudan Shipping Line, was
established in 1962 as a joint venture between the government and
Yugoslavia. In 1967 it became wholly government owned. From the
initial two Yugoslav-built cargo vessels, the line had grown by
the mid-1970s to seven ships, totaling about 52,340 deadweight
tons. During 1979 and early 1980, eight more ships were added,
including six built in Yugoslavia and two in Denmark. In 1990 the
merchant marine consisted of ten ships of 122,200 deadweight
tons. The Yugoslav vessels were all multipurpose and included
container transport features. The Danish ships were equipped with
roll-on-roll-off facilities. Sailings, which had been mainly
between Red Sea ports and northern Europe, were expanded in the
late 1980s to several Mediterranean ports.
Data as of June 1991
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