Hapag-Lloyd, World’s fifth-largest container shipping company, has entered the Kenyan shipping industry. There will be weekly trips from the port of Mombasa to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on the Hapag-Lloyd before coming back to the port of Dar Es Salaam and to Mombasa again. It will initially utilize four vessels, with a capacity of 1,200 TEU each, in the EAS. Hapag-Lloyd, with a renewed interest in the Middle Eastern and African market, has announced that it is continuing to focus on the growing market in East Africa. The flourishing countries in East Africa and Tanzania, lacking their own ports, are likely to welfare from this new propound, as it will give them revamped access to the global market.
After a kick start to this service, it will now be enlarged in September with a weekly interconnection to Nhava Sheva, Khor Fakkan, Mundra, Mombasa, Jebel Ali, and Dar es Salaam. The EAS2 will take place of the current EAS facility and rightly connect the Arabian Gulf with the West Coast of India with East Africa. “I am delighted that our East Africa Service from and to Kenya is developing so positively. After only four months in operation, we have significantly expanded our business with overall vessel utilization beyond our expectations. With our upcoming new EAS2 service we will be able to offer even better connections from and to East Africa. All in all, we are experiencing growing client demand which demonstrates the economic potential of Kenya,” said Dheeraj Bhatia, Hapag-Lloyd Africa, Middle East, and Indian Subcontinent MD.
