The completion of the Honiara seaport facility project that was signed this week between the Solomon Islands’ government and Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will make Honiara to become one of the region’s maritime hubs.
With the signing of the project’s grant agreement this week, it signals the start of the project’s construction phase that is expected to complete by 2016.
JICA representative to Solomon Islands Mr Taiji Usui said completion of this multi-million dollar project will put Honiara to become one of the hubs in the region’s maritime transportation.
“…the project will promise Honiara port to become one of the hubs in the regional maritime transportation and contribute to activate the economy of Solomon Islands. This project is one step on the road to a brighter future for us,” Mr Usui said.
Mr Usui said the project was formulated to solve various problems like vessel conjunction, efficiency and safety of cargo handling operation at the port.
The JICA representative added that the project consists of three components.
That includes the construction of the new international wharf with 150 meter berth, the expansion and pavement of the container yard and installation of water supply facilities, lighting and beacons.
Mr Usui said the wharf will address the problem of congestion of calling ships and reduce berth waiting time of liner container ships to almost zero.
Adding, that more space will be created and will increase the stacking capacity to one and half times and will handle the correspondence to forthcoming increase of container handling volume.
The project is funded by the Japanese government through JICA with an estimated cost of SBD$190m.
By Daniel Namosuaia
