DP World will build and operate a 1,000-hectare logistics platform on the outskirts of Bamako, the Malian capital. A concession contract was signed as part of this project by Suhail Al Banna, DP World’s Director General for the Middle East and Africa, and Moulaye Ahmed Boubacar, Mali’s Minister of Equipment and Transport, 23 July in Dubai.
It will be a multimodal platform, the Mali Logistics Hub (MLH), which will have inland depots for containers and container freight stations to facilitate the country’s external trade via the port of Dakar, which is also operated by DP. World.
Planned both on the main road and near the railway line linking Bamako to Dakar, Senegal, the MLH “will be able to handle 300,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalents), 4 million tons of bulk and general goods” according to DP World.
The first phase of the project, whose construction will start in 2019 for a period of 18 months, will mobilize an investment of $ 50 million.
The MLH aims to significantly reduce the processing time for products entering the Malian market and in this context, DP World announces the implementation of its online dematerialized facilitation platform to accelerate the movement of goods within the framework of the agreement.
“The Mali Logistics Hub will dramatically reduce the cost and time of trade for Mali. The project will provide us with a high quality logistics facility, comparable to international standards (…). The project also allows the Republic of Mali to be connected to global trade routes and to accelerate access and transportation in and out. of the country, “said Moulaye Ahmed Boubacar.
The infrastructure, once operational, will give a clear competitive advantage to the port of Dakar, which disputes the goods traffic of Mali with the port of Abidjan.
Note that DP World obtained for this platform “a 20-year concession, with an automatic extension of 20 years”.
