Commercial operations at the Lekki Deep Seaport in Lagos Free Zone (LFZ) will begin in the first quarter of 2023, Tolaram Group, the frontline investor handling the project, has said.
The investor gave the assurance to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and members of the state’s cabinet who were on a two-day working tour of the three FTZs established in Ibeju Lekki area.
The port, which is being constructed by China Habour Engineering, is occupying 90 hectares in the entire 830 hectares carved out for the FTZ created in 2012 to enhance the economic position of Lagos as a manufacturing and logistics hub in West Africa.
The first phase of the seaport project, which is being financed with $629m from the China Development Bank (CDB), is at 48 per cent completion.
Having gone through the project’s master plan, Gov Sanwo-Olu gave the assurance of his administration’s commitment to delivering the project, stressing that the seaport and other investments happening in the corridor had the potential to increase the state’s GDP in multiple folds.
He noted that the size of the deep seaport would allow 18,000 20-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) capacity vessels which were four times bigger than the ones berthing at Apapa seaports, thereby scaling down the cost of container transportation from any part of the world.
He further said when completed, the seaport was expected to generate more than 170,000 direct and indirect job opportunities for Lagos residents and serve as alternative in an effort to decongest the federal government-owned seaports in Apapa.
The Chief Executive Officer of Lagos FTZ, Mr Dinesh Rathi, said Tolaram Group, a Singaporean company, initiated a $2bn investment in the zone, out of which the investor committed $950m to developing the manufacturing hub in the zone.
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