DP World pushes ahead with Dar es Salaam terminal expansion

Are the Gulf’s port operators buying themselves more geographic optionality? Egyptian EPC contractor Edecs Group is redeveloping seven operational cargo and material-handling yards spanning a combined 90k sqm at DP World’s Terminal 1 in Dar es Salaam, alongside new gates, utilities, and infrastructure for digital yard management, according to a press release published last week. Works are already underway, extending a modernization program that has been running since DP World took over operations in 2023.

The systems lens: the only way out is through

The terminal matters because it sits at the end of a trade corridor linking Tanzania’s coast to the Copperbelt’s mines. The firm’s 30-year concession covers a gateway serving Tanzania and landlocked East and Central African markets, with connections to road, rail, and freight corridors, as well as the Southern-Central African copper belt. The UAE-based port operator has committed more than USD 500 mn to modernize the terminal and its technology.

The infrastructure behind the port is also being rebuilt at the same time. China’s CCECC is now moving ahead with a USD 1.4 bn rehabilitation of the 1.8k-km Tazara railway connecting Dar es Salaam with Zambia, while a USD 270 mn World Bank program is upgrading roads, border infrastructure, and trade systems along the same corridor, according to the project’s appraisal document (pdf).

A successful Tazara rehabilitation could spread the benefits across the corridor. Exporters may face lower costs and fewer delays, the railway may carry more freight, Dar es Salaam could handle more cargo and competing gateways may respond with lower prices or better services, former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum Wolfgang Lehmacher tells EnterpriseAM.

The business lens: control without owning the berth

Another asset inside East Africa shows DP World isn’t running one playbook. In Kenya, where years of attempts to secure berth control at Mombasa stalled, the operator took a different route — developing a 222-hectare industrial park less than 20 km from the port, starting with 40 hectares. The project gives DP World access to the same cargo ecosystem — warehouses, distribution, customs, cold storage, inland logistics — without controlling the terminal itself, giving it two different positions across two competing East African gateways.

But, owning a berth is not the only way to influence the cargo. “A berth controls how cargo comes off a ship,” Lehmacher says. An operator can still gain influence without owning it if it has a strong role in storage, customs, rail, trucking, and distribution, he adds.

That asset diversification has a commercial value of its own — but it shouldn’t be confused with redundancy. Having positions across several markets can spread exposure across port contracts and cargo type, but it doesn’t automatically mean customers can shift disrupted cargo between them, Lehmacher notes.

The resilience lens: redundancy that predates the reason

The new capacity is landing exactly where the port’s next constraint was already flagged. The terminal handled a record 27.7 mn tons in FY 2024/25, up from 23.7 mn tons a year earlier, and DP World says discharge times for comparable cargo have already fallen by more than 90% since it took over. That efficiency gain is real — but the World Bank’s prior diagnosis (pdf) named insufficient container storage space and weak road and rail access as the port’s actual constraints, not berth speed. Faster discharge pushes more cargo onto a landside system that wasn’t sized for the volume — which is exactly the pressure point the Edecs project’s 90k sqm of new operational space is built to absorb before it becomes the next chokepoint, not after.

This isn’t only a DP World strategy — the UAE’s other big port operator is building a similar map. AD Ports already has exposure to the other side of Dar es Salaam port through a 30% stake in the JV — led by AD Ports and Adani Ports — that acquired 95% of the operator of berths 8-11. It also secured or developed long-term port positions in Luanda Port terminal (Angola), Pointe-Noire terminal (Republic of the Congo), and Douala terminal (Cameroon).

The UAE is not alone in turning African ports into long-duration infrastructure positions. Saudi Arabia’s PIF-backed Red Sea Gateway Terminal secured a 30-year concession in 2025 to operate and develop Djibouti’s Tadjourah port, with plans to lift it to an initial capacity of 5 mtpa and add a dedicated freezone serving East African trade and Ethiopian mineral exports. That sits alongside a 92-year agreement for a 120k sqm Saudi Logistics City in Djibouti’s port freezone, and RSGT is now evaluating a separate 25-year concession at Cape Town’s Duncan Dock.

OUR TAKE- A company scrambling to build redundancy mid-crisis is absorbing cost under pressure. A company that already had this portfolio in place is just running its existing playbook at a larger scale — which is the entire argument for building optionality before you need it, not after.