Don’t forget the supporting roles

All too often, congestion on rail and road transits from ports leads to bottlenecks, limiting the growth of trade.

Brazil has been particularly affected by this problem where the commodities currently produced in Brazil’s north-eastern or mid-western states make long truck journeys on substandard roads to the ports in the southeast.

There is room for further investment here, by either developing the interlinking infrastructure by investing in road or rail links or constructing new ports in the north to cope with increasing demand.

A similar problem has arisen in southern Africa. However, a planned heavy haul rail network stretching from Botswana, through Zimbabwe and into Mozambique and Malawi could resolve the problems in regional logistics and exports and challenge South Africa’s dominance in this area.

The proposed 1,100km southern African rail network, which has many links to it, will connect to Ponta Techobanine, a proposed deep-sea port in Mozambique that could compete with the congested Richards Bay Coal Terminal in South Africa, presently used as the main port for exporting commodities from southern Africa.