Benin-Niger cooperation: Mohamed BAZOUM visits the port infrastructures of Cotonou
On an official visit to Benin at the invitation of the President of the Republic, Mr Patrice TALON, His Excellency Mr Mohamed BAZOUM, President of the sister Republic of Niger, at the head of a strong delegation made up of Ministers, senior civil servants and economic operators, paid an important visit to the Port of Cotonou on Monday 13th March 2023.
This event of great significance for the lung of the Beninese economy had two (2) major highlights. The first was the presentation of the Port Master Plan and the major works underway, the aim of which is to increase the capacity of the Port of Cotonou to 25 million tonnes at the end of the works. This presentation took place in the Conference Room of the General Management of the Port Autonome de Cotonou, to the great satisfaction of the President of Niger.
The second highlight of this event was the field visit, led by a governmental delegation from Benin, made up of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mr. Aurélien AGBENONCI, leader of the delegation, the Minister of State in charge of the Economy and Finance, Mr. Romuald WADAGNI, the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Mr. Hervé HEHOMEY, and the Minister of Industry and Trade, Mrs. Alimatou ASSOUMAN.
At the end of this tour which took place in the port, Minister Hervé Hehomey gave an overview of this important visit of the President of the Republic of Niger to the Port of Cotonou.
“We have just visited the Port of Cotonou, after a presentation of port activities, particularly the major projects we are developing at the Port. We presented to the President of Niger what the Port will be like by 2025-2026. We showed the new port development projects, the extension of the port basin, the capacity of the port which will be increased to 25 million tonnes. We showed the President of Niger how we will achieve this. After this presentation, we went on a field visit where we saw the port itself, the port areas, the allocations, the terminals, as distributed according to the new Master Plan. We insisted on the issues of performance of the port, notably the handling issues, the management of our terminals. There are spaces that we are in the process of reallocating for port productivity. We also talked about the “Grand Nokoué” logistics park that will be built in Abomey-Calavi, notably in Akassato, in the area dedicated to this. There are 36 to 40 hectares that will be used for this. We also presented the port logistics zone, which is a production zone with high added value. All these projects that we are doing have interested the President of the Republic of Niger. Niger, which is our first partner in the Port of Cotonou with more than 2 million 300 thousand tonnes. This is important. Niger is well ahead, so they are our privileged partners, and the visit went well.
Source: Government of the Republic of Benin
