Written by Felix Njini | From Bloomberg

Namibia will start tapping markets and investors to finance a five-year, 223 billion Namibian dollars ($19 billion) development plan as early as next year as the country seeks to become a regional transport hub.

The southwest African nation’s government has said it will finance 73 billion Namibian dollars of the budget and use a variety of methods to raise the rest of the money for ports, railways, roads and airport upgrades.

“The best way to address these funding needs is to pursue various alternatives including public-private partnerships and listed infrastructure funds, among others,” Emma Haiyambo, a spokeswoman for the Bank of Namibia in Windhoek, the capital, said in e-mailed responses to questions on Dec. 16.

Namibia intends to position itself as a channel for trade by landlocked neighbors including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. Namibia is expanding capacity and building bulk cargo handling capabilities at its deep water port at Walvis Bay and upgrading the harbor at Luderitz. It will also target customers from southern Angola.

The state-owned Namibia Ports Authority plans to build a harbor to be known as the SADC Gateway Port, about five kilometers (3.1 miles) north of the existing Walvis Bay port. The project will have a dry bulk terminal and a five-berth coal facility, primarily to cater for 65 million metric tons of projected shipments from Botswana’s Mmamabula coalfields to Asian markets.

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