Maputo, June 3, 2025 (Lusa) - The expansion of the port of Maputo, the country’s largest port complex, will make it the deepest in the region, doubling its capacity in one year, the concessionaire announced on Tuesday.
“We will have the deepest port in this area, at 16.5 metres [draught - depth to which the ship is submerged]. This will allow Maputo to become a very important port for Mozambique, as well as for neighbouring [countries],” said the executive director of DP World, a shareholder in the Maputo Port Development Company (MPDC), Ahmed bin Sulayem, after a meeting with Mozambican president Daniel Chapo in Maputo.
MPDC is a private Mozambican corporation resulting from a partnership between the state-owned Portos e Caminhos de Ferro (Ports and Railways) de Moçambique (CFM) and Portus Indico, owned by DP World. The executive director explained that, in addition to expanding infrastructure, the aim is to expand Mozambique’s international trade links.
“We have updated our vision on how to connect Maputo to most of the world. We believe that Mozambique’s economic fundamentals are very strong, and the President has confirmed this to us,” he said after the meeting in Maputo.
According to Sulayem, a group has already been appointed to analyse how to “expand and utilise Mozambique’s logistics capacity”, with the country’s geographical location being a competitive advantage for global trade.
“We believe it is an incredible opportunity. It has a good location and is logistically very close to large markets around it. What we need to do is invest,” he said.
The ongoing expansion of the container terminal at the port of Maputo will increase the quay length to 650 metres and allow ships of up to 366 metres to dock.
The Mozambican president said on Friday that the current growth in road transport of coal and magnetite to the Matola terminal at the port of Maputo was unacceptable, calling for measures to return it to the railways.
“The Matola Coal Terminal, by vocation and origin, is a railway infrastructure. It was designed and conceived to receive cargo from the railway. It is therefore unacceptable that we are now witnessing growth in road transport of coal and magnetite - two products that have always been transported by rail,” said the head of state, visiting the site on the outskirts of Maputo.
The concession of the port of Maputo to MPDC will remain in force until April 13, 2058, under the terms of the addendum to the contract, approved by a Mozambican government decree published in April last year, with the concessionaire planning to invest US$600 million (€571 million) in the expansion of port infrastructure over the first three years.
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