The largest port in the world welcomes Faure Gnassingbé

President Faure Gnassingbé, who is on an official visit to Singapore since Monday, visited its huge port on Tuesday. It is the first in the world for container processing and the second in tonnage, just after that of Shanghai.

Singapore certainly enjoys its position at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, the busiest seaway in the world, between the Indian and Pacific oceans, crossing the Indian subcontinent and booming China. But geography does not explain everything. An unparalleled logistics efficiency attracts shipowners. For if the containers stacked on a half mile of docks, two thirds of them stay here less than a week. One in five goes back during the day! And less than ten are lost each year, proudly point out the officials of Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), the public operator.

Container terminals are working at the limits of their capabilities.MPA, in charge of its terminal, began an ambitious investment program to expand their capabilities.
Fifteen new stations will progressively enter into service. At about 2020, Singapore will have increased its capacity of 50 million TEUs, compared to Le Havre in France which has a capacity of 2.6 million ...

Togo is obviously very far from showing such performance, but the Port of Lomé (PAL) is now recognized as one of the excellent ports of West Africa in terms of infrastructure and speed of handling, this explains its strong growth in recent years.

Therefore, Faure Gnassingbé has also issued directives to extend the capabilities of the platform with the construction of a third dock and an inner harbor.
His visit to the Port of Singapore is the opportunity to see how local expertise could be usefully exploited in Lomé.