Dar es Salaam — The Tanzania International Container Terminal Services Ltd (TICTS) projects to increase the number of containers it will handle by 20 per cent this year.

During 2017, the company handled 500,000 containers.

About 45 per cent of the cargoes were in transit to the landlocked countries.

That was said by the TICTS director of corporate development, Mr Donald Talawa, yesterday during a tour by members of business community from landlocked countries to of Dar es Salaam port.

The increase, according to him, is due to major improvements and expansion projects taking place at the port.

"Cargoes are handled very quickly, and this is the secret behind the success," he said, adding that TICTS had 17 rubber-tyred gantry cranes with a capacity to park up to 500 containers a day.

At the Dar port, TICTS has four berths on a continuous 725 metre quay with a 12.2-metre depth alongside with a capacity to handled two big ships carrying up to 3500 containers and two others ships that carry a maximum of 170 containers.

The director of marketing at Tanzania Ports Authority, Ms Lidya Mallya, said in 2017, the port handled total cargo traffic of 15 million tonnes out of its capacity of 18 million tonnes annually.

Right now the port is expanding births number 1 to 7 of the facility to enable it handle up to 30 million tonnes annually.

"So the stakeholders should not worry about our services, we are doing better to have it compete with others," she said.

Dar es Salaam port handles over 90 per cent of Tanzania's cargo traffic.