Infrastructure

Tanzania Rockets $10bn Bagamoyo Port Back to Life

The port is designed to accommodate the largest vessels in East Africa.

Updated on

November 27, 2025

After nearly a decade on hold, Tanzania’s Bagamoyo Port is finally set to break ground this December, signalling a major push to revive the stalled project.

Officials told Reuters on Sunday that machinery was already en route to the Mbegani Creek site in Bagamoyo and that initial work would begin with 14 of a planned 28 berths.

Situated about 75 kilometres north of Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo Port forms part of a wider special economic zone intended to host industrial parks with new road and rail links.

Government spokesperson Gerson Msigwa said the facility will reach 20 metres, handling vessels larger than those at any other East African port, including “ships with a capacity of up to 25,000 containers”.

Msigwa did not disclose the project’s value or identity of the contractor selected for the revived scheme, although the total cost was previously estimated at around $10 billion.

Tanzania first signed a framework agreement in 2013 with China Merchants Holdings International and Oman’s State General Reserve Fund. That deal faltered when authorities argued the terms were weighted too heavily in favour of the foreign partners.

After renewed negotiations, preliminary works for the Bagamoyo Port began in 2015 under President Jakaya Kikwete, with some residents relocated to clear the Mbegani Creek site.

However, the project stalled within months amid political changes.

Upon assuming office in 2015, Dr John Magufuli sidelined the Bagamoyo Port in favour of expanding Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara ports. He also attempted to renegotiate conditions with the investors.

At the time he said, “Those investors are coming with tough conditions that can only be accepted by mad people. They told us once they build the port, there should be no other port to be built from Tanga to Mtwara south.”

In 2019, Magufuli, who succeeded Kikwete, cancelled it after talks with Chinese investors collapsed. He argued that the proposals tabled by the investors risked “selling Tanzania to China”.