Dar es Salaam Port’s 27.7m-tonne year sets a new baseline for Tanzania’s trade

Friday, 22nd August 2025.

By inAfrika Reporter

DAR ES SALAAM — Tanzania’s main seaport has closed the 2024/25 financial year on 27.7 million tonnes, up from 18 million tonnes in 2020/21 and 4 million tonnes higher than last year’s 23.69 million. Announcing the figures in Dar es Salaam, Acting Port Director Abed Gallus—speaking on behalf of TPA Director General Plasduce Mbossa—called it “a 15 per cent growth” that “has never been achieved since the port was established.” For an economy where more than 95 per cent of sea-borne cargo enters through this gateway, the shift is more than a headline; it changes how time, risk and cost are managed across the corridor.

The mechanics behind the number are visible on the waterfront. Under the Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project (DMGP), the harbour was expanded and key berths deepened to about 14.5 metres, giving larger vessels the draft and confidence to call heavier and keep tighter windows. Equipment upgrades on the quay and in the yard have turned depth into daily speed. “Previously, a container ship was serviced over ten days, but now within three days we can receive, service, and dispatch a container vessel,” Mr Gallus said, framing the seven-day swing as value returned to cargo owners in reduced demurrage and detention and quicker cash conversion.

Scale has tracked the improvement in time. Where mixed-cargo calls once hovered around 15,000 tonnes, the port is now receiving up to 50,000 tonnes per vessel; on bulk grain, lifts have reached 65,000 tonnes, a level “not seen before,” according to Mr Gallus. Heavier voyages spread fixed costs over more cargo and make weekly planning more predictable for importers, transporters and manufacturers. The operating model has tightened in parallel. DP World now manages Berths 0–7 and Tanzania East Africa Gateway Terminal Limited (TEAGTL) operates Berths 8–11, a public–private split that underwrites berth-window integrity, equipment availability and night-shift productivity. Mr Gallus also noted that the entry of new operators a year ago, including DP World and TEAGTL, coincided with the step-up from 23.69 million tonnes in 2023/24 to 27.7 million tonnes in 2024/25.

Policy choices sit beneath the operating discipline. The Sixth-Phase Government’s sustained investment in infrastructure and modern equipment—cranes, yard gear, IT systems—paired with private-sector participation on the quay, is the spine of the result. The DMGP’s intent was explicit: expand capacity and efficiency by deepening water, strengthening berths and improving rail and road interfaces, with a programme ambition to lift cargo transport capacity from 13.8 million tonnes toward 28 million tonnes per year. With 27.7 million tonnes already recorded and service times compressed to roughly three days for containers, the port is now operating at the tempo the project envisioned.

Dar’s centrality magnifies the effect. “The Port of Dar es Salaam is the largest port in Tanzania, with more than 95 per cent of all sea-borne cargo passing through this port,” Mr Gallus reminded stakeholders. When that gateway runs to time, exporters keep sailing windows without rollover penalties, factories trim “just-in-case” stock without gambling on inputs, and retailers hold shelves steadier. Those changes arrive quietly—in invoices without penalties and inventories that turn faster—but they cumulate into calmer prices and cleaner delivery performance.

The Tanzania Ports Authority has also moved to protect the waterfront’s new velocity by shifting part of the container flow to the Kwala Dry Port for inland clearance on rail timetables. Kwala, at Vigwaza in Kibaha roughly 90 km from the quays, sits on a 502-hectare estate. Within a fenced 60-hectare core, 120 hectares have been cleared, 60 hectares levelled and 5 hectares laid in concrete; a 15.5-kilometre concrete access road links the site to the corridor and a 1.3-kilometre spur ties it directly to the TRC network. Transit boxes have already begun moving to Kwala by rail. The operating target is around 823 containers per day—about 300,395 a year, roughly one-third of Dar’s current daily flow—which, at stride, is 823 trucks a day kept out of city traffic while the seafront focuses on rapid ship-to-shore work.

None of this will endure on capital outlay alone; it will endure on routine. Preventive maintenance must keep ship-to-shore cranes and yard machines at availability targets; terminal systems need to handshake cleanly with customs so a container does not trade a yard queue for a paperwork queue; yard slabs must drain when the rains arrive; and night shifts must deliver the same moves per hour as days. The test now is consistency across months and peaks so that 27.7 million tonnes reads not as a high-water mark but as a baseline the market can plan around.

Mr Gallus closed with a commercial message as much as a courtesy. He urged clients and stakeholders to continue using the Port of Dar es Salaam because the service is both high-efficiency and high-capacity, aligning business goals with national objectives. If the clocks stay in sync—deep water and disciplined windows at the quay, rail reliability to Kwala, documentation that moves where the box sits—the dividend will keep compounding where it matters most: on factory floors, in working-capital lines and, ultimately, in the price that households pay for a full basket.