OFID signs new financing agreement for Togo’s Lomé Container Terminal

Vienna, Austria, August 14, 2015.  OFID has signed a €10m million financing agreement to support the purchase of equipment for Togo’s Lomé Container Terminal (LCT). The loan follows a first tranche of €20m provided in 2012 toward the initial construction of the state-of-the art facility. 

LCT was commissioned in late 2014, with full operations for large vessels starting in January 2015. 

As one of the few deep water ports on the West African coast between Senegal and Angola, Lomé is ideally located to serve as a transshipment hub for the growing number of large container vessels seeking to offload imports for onward carriage across the sub-region.

The terminal will support shipping capacity to West Africa, which has been increasing in recent years to capture growing market demand. Until now, though, growth has been constrained due to the lack of facilities and the high cost of port services.

The terminal will significantly lower transportation costs for users, thus increasing the region’s competitiveness and accelerating already strong trade growth. From a development perspective, it will promote regional integration and growth, generate foreign currency earnings for the country and create jobs in the transport sector.LCT is jointly owned by the Mediterranean Shipping Company, which is the second largest container shipping line in the world, China Merchant Holding International, China’s biggest public port operator, and China Development Bank. It is operated by Terminal Investment Limited.

The group of lenders that provided financing for the project is comprised exclusively of development finance institutions, specifically the International Finance Corporation, the Dutch development bank FMO, the German development bank DEG, the French development bank Proparco, the African Development Bank, and OFID.