Inland Container Depot Nairobi (ICDN) saw a 62.4 percent growth in cargo last year, according to KPA data. Nairobi’s cargo growth is attributed to Kenya’s improved Standard Gauge Railway and port services.
The Nairobi-Naivasha Standard Gauge Railway and the Inland Container Depot are expected to transform the country’s logistics on a large scale. Based on the ICDN operations performance report, a total of 418,830 twenty-foot equivalent units were handled in 2019, compared to 257,972 TEUs handled in the previous year.
The increase in ICDN volumes was a result of the Port of Mombasa’s growth which reached the maximum handling capacity of 1.4 million TEUs in 2019. The year before recorded 1.3 million TEUs, a local media reported.
Nairobi ICD manager Peter Masinde, told a local media, “This has been achieved as a result of improved efficiency along the logistics chain from Mombasa to ICDN. This especially after the head of public service circular of June, 2019 aligning government agencies involved in the cargo clearance process.”
ICDN recorded the highest volume of 39,817 TEUs last July, while March saw the lowest volume of 30,958 TEUs being handled. Also, exports measly increased by 17.7 percent equivalent of 2,076 TEUs, compared to 11,701 TEUs in 2018.
Last year, imports accounted for 62.8 percent of the total cargo traffic, while exports at 3.3 percent and empties at 33.9 percent respectively. This is in comparison to 8.9 percent, 4.5 percent, and 26.6 percent respectively in the previous year.
Managing Director Daniel Manduku said that a team with KPA members and the business community will be established to address issues related to Naivasha ICD.