Investment and construction in Africa’s transport sector continues to grow apace as the continent looks to the importance of ports, rail and road infrastructure to provide a backbone for trade between African countries and across the world, says Deloitte.
In the ‘Deloitte on Africa: African Construction Trends Report 2015’ released in Johannesburg recently, J-P Labuschagne, Associate Director and Lead in Africa Infrastructue & Capital Projects Leader at Deloitte said that of the ‘Top 10’ projects, ranked by US dollar value, in East Africa, six were related to the development of transport facilities. These reflected a total of 51% of overall infrastructure spend in the region, which although significant, was below the 2014 figure of 59%.
Of these ‘Top 10’ projects, two were in Kenya. These were The East Africa Railway with a project value of about US $13 billion- and the Mombasa to Malaba standard gauge railway line (US$ 3.8 billion). Other projects were:
The port at Bagamoyo in Tanzania ( US $ 11 billion);
A 740 km electric railway line in Djibouti (US $ 4.0 billion);
The Sudan-Chad railway line in Sudan ( US $ 2.0 billion); and,
The Potash railway in Ethiopia (US $ 1.5 billion);
”A major trend unfolding in the region is more collaborative decision-making surrounding the prioritisation of projects and the flow of projects. The cogs of East African progress will, in particular, rely substantially on development of trade routes. It is through presidential championing of projects such as LAPSSET, that the region is pushing towards a more integrated, regional transport infrastructure,” said Labuschagne.
In West Africa, the trend towards increasing spend on the transport sector in 2014 had seen 29% spent on transport out of a total infrastructure development spend of US$ 49.8 million. This had grown in 2015 to 30% of a total spend of US $ 116.2 billion.
In Southern Africa, which accounted for 36% of all projects in Africa and 37% in value at US $ 140 billion, spend on transport related projects dropped to 21% (2014: 24%).
Despite this decrease, much of the expectation for growth in the region still hinges on the development of transport infrastructure, particularly harbours and rail,” said Mr Labuschagne
Within the Southern African ‘Top 10’, the transport sector featured four times. The most significant project at US $ 22.8 billion was the Durban harbour project in South Africa. Other projects included:
146 km railway line in Swaziland (US $ 7.0 billion);and
US $ 4.4 billion coal terminal at the Mozambican port of Nacala;
In Central Africa the transport sector showed a significant upward shift, moving from 60% of all spend in 2014 to 65% in 2015.
“Central Africa, which includes Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Central African Republic, represents 8% of all projects in Africa, and 10% in Dollar value at US $ 35.8 billion” said Mr Labuschagne.
Contact:
Sibongile Modiba
Magna Carta (PR)
Snr Account Director
+27(0) 11 784-2598
sibongile@magna-carta.co.za
