The Cape Town Container Terminal (CTCT) has delivered on its promise to have a total of 2Â 000 “reefer points” — power points for refrigerated containers — in place by the end of January 2005, ahead of the peak season for exports of fruit from the Western Cape.
Announcing the achievement on Thursday, Oscar Borchards, a CTCT business unit executive, said that the successful reefer expansion programme is in keeping with a recent announcement by Transnet that it had sanctioned investments of R2-billion to upgrade and improve the Durban and Cape Town container terminals to further enhance efficiency.
South African Port Operations (Sapo) made the commitment to increase the capacity against a background of growing reefer traffic last year. This was together with a number of other initiatives, including a R600-million capital expansion programme at the CTCT, aimed at improving ship turnaround time, improving support to the valuable refrigerator cargo market and enhancing client services.
Sapo is aiming to achieve a R1-billion profit target for the year.
“We pulled out all stops to deliver on the commitment made to the fruit industry last year,” said Borchards. “The CTCT is now offering 2Â 000 points — of which 229 are mobile points — an increase of 608 points from 1Â 392 in November 2004.”
The expansion programme cost R41-million. – I-Net Bridge