A small fishing village in southwestern Cameroon is counting on Chinese financing to transform itself into a major Central African maritime hub.
The Kribi Deep Seaport, on Africa’s Atlantic coast, is being built by China’s state-owned China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) and largely financed by China’s Eximbank, which has provided about $1.48 billion over the past decade.
It is hoped that the port will provide relief to Douala, Cameroon’s main port, about 150km to the north, and serve as a gateway for landlocked neighboring countries including Chad and the Central African Republic.
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The first phase of the port was completed in 2014 and has been in use since 2018. Pascal Balla Ondoua, director of studies, projects and cooperation for the Kribi Port Authority, said the second phase of the project will make the port bigger and deeper.
“We hope that the second phase activities will start in the first quarter of 2025,” Ondoua told the Post in an interview at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.
The second phase, once completed, will double the port’s capacity – with the hope that Kribi will then attract more transshipment cargo and larger ships.
According to Ondoua, this is something the Cameroonian government is counting on.
The expanded port, improved road network and an industrial area near the port should all work together to improve the financial situation of Kribi, which is currently best known for its palm-lined sandy beaches that attract tourists, and for its fishing sector.
According to the schedule, Ondoua will say: “CHEC will complete work on the new terminals by the end of the year and then commercial operations will commence next year.”
The second phase of the project will see the quay line extended, with a further 700 meters (2,296 feet) dedicated to container traffic and storage areas of more than 30 hectares (74 acres).
As part of the expansion, CHEC is also constructing an aluminum terminal and a hydrocarbon terminal, additional buildings, expanding roads and purchasing more handling equipment such as wharf and park gantries.
There are also two offshore terminals used for oil exports from Cameroon and Chad, and an offshore gas terminal for the liquefaction and export of gas by Golar LNG and Perenco – liquefied natural gas producers in Cameroon.
“Our ambition is to become the logistics hub in the region. We already receive a lot of transhipment cargo destined for other ports,” said Ondoua. “When Gabon had problems last year, a lot of cargo was shipped via Kribi. But we also receive goods for Nigeria.”
Kribi Deep Seaport’s quay will be extended by 700 meters to accommodate more container traffic in the second phase of the expansion. Photo: CGTN alt=Kribi Deep Seaport quay will be extended by 700 meters to accommodate more container traffic in the second phase of the expansion. Photo: CGTN>
Kribi Port is one of several Belt and Road Initiative projects that illustrate a financing model increasingly used among Chinese companies and lenders, in which Chinese companies are moving beyond engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts to diversify into direct ownership and operations.
According to the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the government of Cameroon initially planned to award the operation of the Port of Kribi to a consortium of two French companies. But when Eximbank demanded that CHEC also participate, the Chinese contractor joined as a minor shareholder in the port operations joint venture with a 20 percent stake.
CHEC, together with the French group CMA CGM and its subsidiary Bollore Transport & Logistics, were awarded the financing and operating rights of Kribi Container Terminal for 25 years under a public-private partnership.
Over the past decade, Cameroon has borrowed about $1.48 billion from China’s Eximbank to build the first and second phases of the port, as well as a major highway leading to it.
China’s Eximbank is providing two loans totaling $674.5 million: a $524.5 million preferential export buyer credit and a $150 million concessional loan for the port expansion. It had advanced $423 million for the construction of the first phase.
A 2023 CARI study found that Chinese banks required the involvement of Chinese contractors in both construction and operation as a condition for lending to overseas railway projects.
Ondoua said the Chinese company has also constructed the Kribi-Lolabe highway to connect the port to other parts of the country. China’s Eximbank has advanced $385.8 million for the construction of the highway, which serves as a major artery in the Kribi region.
“They are also helping us develop land in the port. They are good partners in the development of our port,” Ondoua said, referring to CHEC. “Our cooperation with China has already yielded good results.”
He said the first phase of the port has already attracted investors in cement, agribusiness and cocoa processing.
“We want to develop more space for investors,” he said, marking a major plan to develop 1,500 hectares of land in the Kribi Industrial Zone.
The Kribi Port Authority has since signed memoranda of understanding with companies such as CHEC, the pan-African industrial zone developer Arise, and Tangier-Med, a Moroccan industrial port complex, to develop the Kribi Industrial Zone.
Ondoua said a number of other Chinese companies had shown interest in Kribi port.
“We have received delegations from Chinese companies wanting to set up factories,” Ondoua said.
“One of the most important development areas in our port is minerals, especially iron ore. One of the companies that will develop and manage iron ore is a Chinese company,” he said, referring to the huge iron ore projects near Kribi that have attracted many people. Chinese companies.
A subsidiary of Chinese state miner Sinosteel Corporation Limited is developing the Kribi-Lobe iron ore mine, just 40 km from Kribi. In 2022, the Cameroonian government signed a US$680 million iron ore mining deal with Sinosteel to extract 10 million tonnes of iron ore every year for 20 years.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice covering China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP Facebook page Tweet Pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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