Sandiara is a small town located at 100 km from Dakar, at 48 km from Ndayane where the new port project is planned and at 1200 km from Bamako, the capital of Mali.

Sandiara will soon have a dry port, the first phase of the project was launched last month by Senegalese and Malian officials. This dry port will have a capacity for 1000 trucks and 6000 containers. The project will help to decongest the port of Dakar (Port Autonome de Dakar-PAD) as trucks to/from Mali will no longer need to drive until Dakar in order to load/discharge goods or fuel in Dakar and will bring important benefits to trade from/to Mali considering that today 70% of Mali imports and exports are shipped via Senegal.

Mali has a population of nearly 19 million, its landlocked position constitutes a major challenge for a country with an economy highly dependent on the outside world. Products from/to Mali usually stay for over 20 days in the port of Dakar which impacts the supply chain and increases the costs of the products. Mali imports mainly foodstuff, chemicals, building materials, vehicles & spare parts as well as various consumer goods. The country exports cotton and cotton products, fines and shea butter, shea butter, Arabic gum, leather and hides, shea nuts and butter and other products. 

The dry port of Sandiara is part of the PSE (Plan Sandiara Émergent) the Emerging Sandiara Plan, which aims to transform the town into a logistics hub and a development zone in cooperation with the Entrepôts du Mali au Sénégal (Emas). The project will have a total cost of 10 billion CFA francs and will include a waiting area for trucks bound to the port, a storage area, a logistic area for different companies and producers, a gas station as well as an industrial zone which will produce industrial goods for the whole West African region. In its first phase, this dry port will have a storage and parking area of 4 hectares and then will be extended to reach a total of 20 hectares with hotels, restaurants, container stations, petrol stations, everything that makes up a port, including cold and ambient temperature storage facilities. 

New service capabilities

The dry port will be like a Malian port in Senegalese territory and will be able to offer the following services among others :

– customs clearance 

– storage of containers 

– unstuffing and stuffing of containers

– cargo consolidation 

– container maintenance and repair

– warehousing facilities

At Africa Container Shipping we are already able to offer transport solutions from/to Mali via the port of Dakar but the Sandiara dry port project will have a positive impact on transit times and transport costs and will be connected to the new port of Ndayane as well.