eritrea investing 1.4 billion nakfa on ports

Hello I thought we could do with some good news and found this article re: the Upgrading of the Port facilities at the port of Massawa in Eritrea.

Thought I don't believe South Boulder Mines will be using the Port, I thought wishing positive news from Eritrea would be interested in seeing this article and the expanded article.

I found this article at http://tesfanews.net/archives/1740

The full story can be found at -

(Source: http://www.shabait.com/articles/nation-building/4884-interlinking-eritrea-through-transport-and-communications-networks-),

which is very extensive and goes into the Railway/Airports and Port upgrades, though rail is not for the Colluli Line as I can find out.

Anyways, this article is an indication of the infrastructure development going on in the background. Obviously this infrastructure development is creating work for the locals and I believe is a positive development for Eritrea and its people in the long term.


THE ARTICLE?..

Eritrea investing 1.4 Billion Nakfa on Ports and another 460 Million on Railway expansion

March 8th, 2011 tesfanews

Modernizing and upgrading of port facilities among the top priorities Eritrea has disclosed it has so far invested 1.4 Billion Nakfa (around 100 Million USD) on upgrading the ports of Massawa and Assab.

Reports indicates, the port of Massawa was first established in 1655 during the Turkish period and was at its highest level of advancement during the Italian colonial period. However, it was degenerated during the Ethiopian colonial era.

Mr. Ghebremedhin Habte, Director General of Maritime transportation, indicates that shallow harbors with a depth of 3.8 meters have been upgraded to a depth of 12 meters so as to meet international standards and easily host big cargo ships.

He also says, modern facilitating equipments such as tugboats, harbor cranes, shore cranes, mobile cranes, bagging machines, forklifts, and spare parts have also been steadily introduced besides the establishment of modern terminals, Hirgigo oil jetty(at a Cost Of USD 31.6 Million),
expansion of the Sigalet causeway and Bab-Ashera roads and finalization of the Massawa Master plan.

Eritrea was also keen to revive the aging railway system which was first introduced during the Italian colonial era and beleived one of the first and best in Africa. The country has allocated, thusfar, another 460 Million Nakfa (around 32 Million USD) to upgrade and expand the already
revived railway system in the country.

According to Mr. Amanueal Gebreselassie, the government will invest heavily to upgrade the Asmara-Massawa railroad, laying another 50Km long new railway line that would extend up to the new mining site at Embaderho, which is 20Km from the capital and another 25Km to the new cement factory at Gedem and remaining 5Km from Massawa to the Free Zone area.

Part of the immediate plan also includes importing of new trains and carriages that would used in transporting about 850,000 tones of goods annually.