Berbera Port Expansion $442m Planned Investment

On 29 October 2018, Somaliland Standard reported that DP World had operated the Berbera container port on the Gulf of Aden for about a year and was set to invest $442m in an expansion project that would more than quintuple the port's capacity. The report, which reproduced a Financial Times article, did not establish any progress on the expansion since that date.

According to Somaliland Standard, a groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion was held that month in Hargeisa, where DP World chairman and chief executive Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem spoke. The report stated that Ethiopia had announced it would take a stake in Berbera alongside DP World and the Somaliland government, though the size, value, and final status of that stake were not given.

The article detailed Ethiopia's dependence on a single port in Djibouti for more than 90 per cent of its trade, a figure without a cited source, and said Ethiopia's GDP had risen tenfold in the past 15 years to more than $80bn. It noted that Djibouti seized the Doraleh terminal from DP World in February of an unspecified year after accusing the company of under-using the port in favour of Berbera and other regional terminals.

Somaliland Standard reported that the UAE had built a naval base at the Eritrean port of Assab and had similar plans for Berbera, while also stating that the UAE was constructing an Emirati air force base and a harbour there. The report said the facility was five miles from DP World's port, though the company said there was no connection between the military agreement and its commercial investment.

On legal status, Somaliland Standard wrote that Somalia's government opposed the DP World deal and that, as long as Somaliland's independence is not recognised, Berbera remains part of Somalia under international law. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991, the report said.

The article did not state whether the $442m investment had been deployed, any contract value or total project cost, or any construction milestone after the groundbreaking. No capacity baseline was provided to verify the quintupling claim, and no update on the project's status since the 2018 report was included.