El Amreya Dry Port opens to take storage and clearance work off Alexandria and Dekheila

Alexandria’s seaports are carrying more of Egypt’s trade than they were a year ago, and the city’s about to get an inland site to take on some of that load. El Amreya Dry Port, Alexandria’s first and Egypt’s second after Sixth of October, opens on 11 October with officials from the Finance and Transport ministries in attendance, CEO Ahmed Abul Hassan tells EnterpriseAM. Container traffic through Alexandria and Dekheila rose 14% to 2.59 mn TEUs in FY 2025-26, according to official figures seen by EnterpriseAM. Transit led the growth as shippers leaned on Mediterranean gateways while geopolitical tensions affected Red Sea ports.

Why it matters: Dry ports move part of a seaport’s storage, handling, and customs work inland, so containers spend less time on the quay and goods move faster and more cheaply between factories, ports, and markets. El Amreya is the first dry port to serve Alexandria directly, and one of 33 dry ports and logistics zones the Transport Ministry wants nationwide.

What’s inside

It’s built as a logistics hub: Safety Navigation and Transport, which was awarded the tender to build El Amreya, sees it as an integrated logistics corridor serving exporters and every link in the supply chain, Chairman Ahmed Mustafa tells EnterpriseAM. The port has separate yards for loaded, refrigerated, empty, and hazardous-goods containers, and a vehicle and equipment. The site includes an MTS logistics center to organize procedures and operations within the port, Abul Hassan says, giving access to cargo owners across different services within the same facility.

Cold storage is a big part of the offer: El Amreya has four cold storage with 16 chambers of up to 625 units each, rated for goods that need very low temperatures. Its two dry warehouses hold up to 1.1k units each.

It opens plugged in: El Amreya will open with a connection to Nafeza, Egypt’s national single window for foreign trade, to process customs procedures digitally. The facility will also integrate with the national railway network, with the combined setup targeting a 15-20% reduction in cargo transport costs.

Why Alexandria needs the room

Transit is doing the heavy lifting: Transit containers jumped 74% in FY 2025-26 to 553.4k TEUs from 317.4k a year earlier, with transit tonnage up 62% to 5.78 mn tons. Loaded containers serving the local market grew more slowly, up 6% to 1.59 mn TEUs from 1.50 mn, while empties slipped 1.3% to 446.5k TEUs. Total container tonnage rose 11% to 28.31 mn tons.

The ships followed: Container vessel calls increased 7% to 2.1k, while RoRo calls climbed 26% to 221. Liquid bulk calls rose 5% to 658, while dry bulk held flat at 818. Egypt is also working as an overland bridge for some of that traffic, with shippers routing Europe-GCC cargo through Egypt: trailers land at Damietta, move overland to Safaga, and cross to Saudi Arabia.

How it fits the national plan

The ministry wants a network: The Transport Ministry’s 33 dry ports and logistics zones aim to link manufacturing, agricultural, and mining centers to seaports and consumer markets by road and rail. They sit along seven corridors, which include Arish-Taba, Sokhna-Alexandria, Cairo-Alexandria, Tanta-Mansoura-Damietta, Gargoub-Salloum, Cairo-Aswan-Abu Simbel, and Safaga-Qena-Abu Tartour.

More are in the pipeline: Sky Ports is developing a dry port in Alexandria’s New Borg El Arab, with technical studies due for submission early this month. Medlog’s USD 130 mn Tenth of Ramdan dry port and logistics hub is meanwhile expected to begin operations in 2027.

OUR TAKE- Opening day will show the facility is ready. The real test comes a few months in: whether container dwell times at Alexandria and Dekheila start to come down, and whether trucks are picking up boxes that have actually cleared. If El Amreya can make that work in a port as busy as Alexandria, it’s a good sign for the rest of the ministry’s list.