A tender for the construction of a deep water port in São Tomé and Príncipe has been launched. The port will be located in Fernão Dias, in the Lobata district, north of São Tomé, under a public-private partnership.
According to the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Osvaldo de Abreu, the purpose of the tender for the construction of a deep water port in São Tomé and Príncipe is the construction of a port that has at least one multipurpose terminal and that can initially receive ships of up to 30,000 tons, and should also be able to expand in the future. The future port is expected to be 16 metres deep and aims “to transform São Tomé and Príncipe into a platform for providing services to Central and West African countries by serving as a transhipment site for containers and goods from various parts of the world to those countries.”
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Proposals for the construction must be submitted by 20 January 2020, will be opened in a public session the following day, 21 January, and should include financing, negotiation of concession contracts, as well as the start and completion of construction. Cislau Costa, the coordinator of the Technical Unit to Support Public-Private Partnerships, said that the international public tender will be governed by the Public Contracting and Procurement regulation, approved by Law No. 8/2009 of 26 August.
Possible bidders
Over the past four years, there have been reports that Chinese companies were interested in building a port on the island. Four years ago, it was announced that talks were underway with the China Harbour Engineering Company over the building of an $800m port, in which the Chinese side was expected to invest $120m. In 2017, the China Road & Bridge Corporation was linked to the scheme. In 2018, Macau Legend Development reportedly expressed interest. Following these reports, in February 2019, Abreu said negotiations with China were at an “advanced stage” to build a multifunctional port with unnamed Chinese companies.
