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Hien Yacouba Sié: "The port of Abidjan has made a big leap forward"

The director of the port of Abidjan, Hien Yacouba Sié.

AFP - ISSOUF SANOGO

Text by: Bruno Faure Follow

4 mins

After two years of pandemic and while the war in Ukraine is disrupting international trade, the director of the port of Abidjan granted an interview to RFI.

Hien Yacouba Sié details his modernization strategy and comments on the takeover of the logistics activities of the Bolloré group by MSC.

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RFI: How is the port of Abidjan emerging from the pandemic period which has severely disrupted world trade?

Hien Yacouba Sié:

Despite the shock of 2020, 2021 has been a rather interesting year for the port of Abidjan in terms of traffic.

This is the consequence of the vitality of the Ivorian economy.

This resulted in record traffic of 30 million in gross tonnage (goods and container), 28 million in net tonnage, i.e. a growth of 12% compared to 2020.

What product are you pulling up to and who are your customers today?

We can first talk about cement inputs.

A land under construction requires a lot of building materials.

To this must be added the growth of exports of agricultural products, especially cashew nuts.

For destinations, the Asia-Oceania zone accounts for about 36% of traffic against 28-30% for Europe, but inter-African traffic has also experienced growth with almost 27%.

What products are traded in Africa?

We import a lot of rough from Nigeria mainly, but not only.

We also have exchanges with Morocco and more generally North Africa.

As for phosphate, fertilizers, we are one of the few countries with Cameroon to export.

We also have rubber, cocoa, coffee.

And then

began to take an interest in mining: manganese, nickel, etc. It gives an interesting prospect which encourages investment.

The port of Abidjan is in debt but it is a very good debt, a catalyst for the economy.

It is a debt that is sustainable because our resources ensure that we will not be in default.

This is important for the future of our country, but also for the West African economy because many countries depend on the performance of the port of Abidjan.

Our role is to offer a service that meets the expectations of operators, that the port is for them a catalyst for their supply and exports rather than a bottleneck.

It is also a port that must be modernized.

Where are your projects?

Indeed, if we start from 2011, we have made a great leap forward.

We have inherited the result of decades of non-investment.

Since the 1980s, large investments at the level of the State itself in Côte d'Ivoire have been stopped or suspended because of the long socio-political or military crises that we have experienced.

The port of Abidjan had to be put in working order.

Significant investments have therefore been made: approximately 1,100 billion CFA francs from 2012 to 2022 via two strategic plans.

Some projects have been completed: the fishing port in 2015, the Vridi canal inaugurated in 2019, the RORO terminal in 2020. And there are ongoing projects: the grain terminal and especially the second container terminal.

Today,

Abidjan has the handicap of not being able to receive large container ships.

We receive them with a maximum capacity of 3,500 containers, while ships that frequent the West African coasts can carry up to 12,000 containers.

And so, where is this project?

It's pretty well advanced.

The inauguration is scheduled for November 2022. This raises a lot of expectations among all port stakeholders and the State of Côte d'Ivoire.

It was our ambition and it can predict the capacity of Côte d'Ivoire and the port of Abidjan to process inputs for the next 50 years.

It is a port that is being built through a public-private partnership for an investment of 506 billion CFA francs: 250 by the State via the port and 256 by the private operator.

It is a port that will be based on the latest technologies, for gantries for example.

And we insisted on the ecological aspect on the terminal with electric vehicles.

The port of Abidjan is ISO 14001 certified (environmental criteria).

What do you think of the takeover of Bolloré's logistics activities by MSC, including those of the port of Abidjan?

The subject must be dealt with at two levels, on the system level and on the port level.

On a purely port level, we have a contract with the APMT-Bolloré group which has requirements and which in themselves are not called into question.

On the systemic level, however, it is something else.

Mergers of large groups such as these, we must ensure that they do not go against our national interests.

I think we are all working on it to ensure that, whatever the change at the head of our structures, the interests of our countries and our structures are preserved.

► To read also: The port of Abidjan, pillar of trade between Côte d'Ivoire and the rest of the world

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