Ethiopia and Djibouti sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate the livestock export through the modern and biggest logistics facility, Doraleh Multipurpose Port (DMP) SAS.
The delegation led by Oumer Hussein, Minister of Agriculture, had paid a visit to Djibouti a week ago and during the trip the two parties have agreed to boost the export trade of live animals which is one of the hard currency earners for Ethiopia.
From the questions that Capital inquired through email to DMP, the maritime giant disclosed that the visit of the Ethiopian Minister was part of the signing of the MoU between the Ministry of Agriculture of Djibouti and its counterpart of Ethiopia on the use of the DMP Livestock Terminal.
“Indeed, DMP will serve as a transit station to provide services such as the supply of rest areas to international standards, handling and stowage for the export of live animals,” it explained, adding, “DMP, will work in close collaboration with the National Veterinary Authority (NVA) and will issue the alert in the event of the discovery of serious pathogens.”
As per the operation, the cattle will be sent from Ethiopia from the quarantine center in Mille, Afar region about 530 kilometers east of Addis Ababa.
“The rest period of cattle on the cattle terminal should be between 48 and 72 hours. With this signature, we have taken an important step in this project and intend to finalize it very soon,” the DMP response to Capital elaborated.
DMP has built a state of the art livestock terminal of 27,515 square meters inside the terminal. The livestock Park was inaugurated on January 16, 2021 with an annual capacity of 2.5 million cattle.
Regarding site capacity per day it shall manage 1,000 heads of camel, 500 heads of cattle 4,270 heads of goat or sheep at the current phase that will be expanded in the coming expansion projects.
On July 12th 2022, Djama Ibrahim Darar, General Manager of DMP SAS received within the Port enclosure a Ministerial delegation composed of Oumer, Fikru Regassa, State Minister of Agriculture, Berhanu Tsegaye, Ethiopian Ambassador to Djibouti, Mohamed Ahmed Awaleh, Minister of Agriculture, Water, Fisheries, Livestock and Fishery Resources, accompanied by his Secretary General Ibrahim Elmi for the signing of a memorandum of Understanding.
On his twit Oumer says, “I am delighted in the signing of the MoU with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Djibouti to operationalize the DMP. The port serves as a resting terminal for export animals originating from Ethiopia. This will boost the staggering live animal export.”
Being located at the main trade route of Asia-Europe -Africa, DMP is positioned as a multimodal platform which will achieve its logistics chain at the regional and international level.
DMP’s activities for fertilizer and grain import to Ethiopia have grown over the year. Regarding fertilizer traffic, it has increased by 50 percent from 2018 to 2021 because DMP benefits with modern infrastructure and equipment’s to accommodate post panamax dry bulk vessels (more than 80 000 MT). DMP is the largest port and main supplier to handle Ethiopian Shipping Lines and all the NPS/NPSB/NPSZNB (types of fertilizer) volume. Also, DMP offers to Ethiopia a wide range of storage silo capacity to store their cargo as well as smooth the free flow operation of their dispatch and direct delivery.
Concerning wheat cargo, DMP has shown an increment of 8 percent from 2018 to 2021 because of the Ethiopian government imports. Besides that, DMP handled the aid cargo import volume with WFP, USAID and other clients and provided them with a wide range of services to facilitate the delivery of cargo to Ethiopia.
Since the opening of DMP Railway Terminal, DMP is connected to Ethiopia not only by road but also by rail. DMP benefits 5 lines of railway to ease the transport flow of fertilizer and wheat, in which the customer can get its cargo on time. This has enabled DMP to enhance its performance productivity and improve the truck delivery process.
Inaugurated in May 2017, the Doraleh Multipurpose Port was designed to relieve congestion at the former historical port of Djibouti.
The DMP accommodates vessels with up to 100,000 DWT and boasts some of the most modern facilities in Africa.
The facility that consumed USD 590 million in investment cost has a range of terminals that include bulk, break, container and RoRo, and it has 1,200 meters of quay line, accommodating 6 berths with a depth of 15.3 meters.