Somalia plans to open in October a new deep-water port in Gara’ad, a coastal city in the Puntland State close to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, one of the most important sea crossing points in the world. Currently, there are four major operational ports in Somalia, i.e. Mogadishu, Berbera, Kismayo and Bosasso. The Gara’ad port is part of a $531 million investment plan aimed at opening up a hub in central Somalia to facilitate the import of food supplies into a region which is chronically plagued by droughts, desert locust infestations, flooding and conflict, in an attempt to enhance food security in the whole Federation. The Gara’ad port also aims at offering to the eastern regions of landlocked Ethiopia an additional access to the sea (particularly for trade with the Arabian Gulf countries and Asia), in line with the port diversification strategy launched by the government of this country less than a decade ago to reduce its dependance on the Djibouti port, that currently handles the lion's share of Ethiopian trade.

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Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM), the State-owned company responsible for the management of the Port and Railway system in Mozambique, has announced that an express train will be soon launched to facilitate the mobility of people and goods between the port of Maputo and South Africa and Eswatini. The announcement was made during the Maputo International Fair (FACIM), the Mozambique’s biggest trade, industrial and services fair, by the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the CFM. This initiative follows the recent signature by the CFM of two agreements, one with the South Africa’s Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) for the elimination of rail borders (dated 1 July 2022) and one with Eswatini Railways dated 5 August for the abolition of the rail border on the Goba rail line, which now allows the free movement of freight trains (mainly transporting coal) between the two countries.

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