Shekosh Reports

The International Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Djibouti has offered Ethiopian businesses a surprising fifty percent discount on average on storage payments for imported and exported goods that will be stored at the cluster of warehouses in the Port of Djibouti before being shipped to Ethiopia or exported from the port, knowledgeable sources informed The Reporter.  The move came on the heels of a brewing dispute between the chamber and DP World following the latter’s decision to move all its operation to the new port facility it built at Doraleh, according to sources.
Following the opening of its new and modern container terminal in March as the centerpiece of its development plans for the Port of Djibouti it controls under a 20-year concession, the port management company has now moved almost its entire operation to the new facility. This has, according to sources, rendered the cluster of warehouses at the older port literary idle, thereby slashing the “lucrative” income the warehouses had been generating in storage payments.

Owing to the fact that the income the warehouses generate goes to the coffers of the International Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Djibouti and many of the Djiboutian businesses are members of the chamber, DP World’s decision to entirely reallocate its operation to the new facility has been met with fierce criticisms from the business community, according to sources.

The warehouses at the older port facility were generating tens of millions of dollars per month in storage fees, these sources said.

After the new port at Doraleh went operational, the port management had also been in fierce dispute with the Ethiopia Shipping Lines in its decision that all vessels in possession of the national flag carrier, be the goods they carry are containerized or bulk, call at the new port, a decision which the latter firmly resisted and resulted in the sacking of the then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in charge of DP World Djibouti, Jerome Martins Oliveira.

With more and more of the operations of DP World Djibouti shifting to the new port facility some 13km away from the Port of Djibouti, a business delegation from Djibouti led by the President of the International Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Djibouti, Sadid Omar Moussa, was here on a business trip, during which time it announced a fifty percent discount on average on storage payments for imported and exported goods that will be stored at the cluster of warehouses at the Port of Djibouti.