From Bloomberg

Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, the state company that runs the nation’s two ports, will award contracts worth $2.5 billion through 2018 to double capacity, handle larger ships and reduce waiting time for vessels.

West Africa’s second biggest economy has given 18 companies from around the world a deadline of Jan. 27 to present technical and financial bids for five stages of expansion at Tema and Takoradi ports, Paul Asare Ansah, head of marketing and public relations at the agency, said in an interview on Nov. 18. He declined to name the bidders.

Capacity for twenty-foot equivalent containers at Tema, which handles about 90 percent of the nation’s traffic, will double to 2 million TEUs a year by 2018, he said. Tema is located 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Accra, the capital.

“It’s our dream to make Ghana the regional hub for shipments and receive really big vessels,” Ansah said. “We need to quickly expand capacity to handle the ever increasing traffic.”

Ghana’s debut as an oil exporter in 2010 boosted demand for imports of machinery, fuel and food. The economy of the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer has grown at an average 7.3 percent, faster than the average in sub-Saharan Africa, in the past decade, putting pressure on aging infrastructure. Ghana wants to offer an alternative to Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer and home to West Africa’s biggest port, as cases of piracy increase in the Gulf of Guinea.

Written by Ekow Dontoh | Read more at Bloomberg