Cape Town’s port upgrades critical for growth

Cape Town’s port upgrades critical for growth

Upgrades at the Cape Town Port is set to boost South African exports

By Leon Louw founder of WhyAfrica and editor of the WhyAfrica magazine.

Efficient ports are critical to African economies and infrastructure, none more so than Cape Town Port on the most southern tip of Africa.

According to state owned South African freight transport and logistics company Transnet, Cape Town handles close to 16 million tonnes of cargo per year (2023 figures)

Cape Town might not be the largest port in Africa (that honour belongs to Durban, another South African port) but it is vital for the agricultural sector and the economy of the Western Cape Province, supporting fruit, wine and fish exports.

SA ports the gateway to Africa    

South African ports act as a gateway to Southern Africa, moving goods into Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and the DRC. However, inefficient ports diminish South Africa’s position as a regional hub, allowing other African ports like Walvis Bay in Namibia and Maputo in Mozambique to gain cargo volumes.

Transnet announced recently that South Africa is injecting more than USD230-million into upgrading the Port of Cape Town to boost agricultural exports. The upgrade will increase terminal capacity from one million TEU to 1.4 million TEU (TEU stands for Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit. It’s a standard unit of measurement used in ports to describe the capacity of container ships and terminals).

Upgrades at the Port of Cape Town

The upgrade at the port of Cape Town includes the development of 30 hectares of idle land for warehousing and support services and the acquisition of new cranes and port equipment. This includes, amongst other equipment, 28 rubber-tyred gantry (RTG) cranes of which nine have already been delivered and seven ship-to-shore cranes.

Wind and the loss of productivity

Wind is the leading cause of productivity loss at the Cape Town Container Terminal (1200 hours of wind related downtime) and therefore the Port will invest 20 hydraulic shore-tension units to stabilise vessels under high swells and wind, helicopter piloting service to ensure vessel movements during high wind events and a joint CSIR-led research programme for predictive wind modelling.

WhyAfrica aims to visit South African ports

To learn more about the critical importance of African ports and infrastructure, visit the WhyAfrica website, your one stop-shop for on the ground information and business intelligence about Africa.

Remember to follow the 2025 WhyAfrica Road Trip in August and September during which we plan to visit four of South Africa’s most important ports facilities.

Please contact us if you have any equipment on site or if you operate any facilities at important ports in Africa. Your story is one of the most important ones in the growth of the African continent, and WhyAfrica would love telling your story to our large network and growing global audience.

Image: Cape Town Port in the shadow of Table Mountain. Image credit: hush_naidoo-jade from Unsplash.

Cape Town’s port upgrades critical for growth