What Abu Dhabi does in Africa against China
All the latest moves from Abu Dhabi in Africa. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
Abu Dhabi Ports, a subsidiary of the emirate's ADQ holding company, entered into a 35-year alliance earlier this month with maritime operator CMA CGM. It is preparing for rapid development in Africa, where CMA CGM is a major player.
The container terminal of Kamsar in Guinea is today the only resource of Abu Dhabi Ports in Africa. Its eternal rival, DP World (Dubai Ports World), owned by the emirate of the same name, is already present in Senegal, Mozambique, Angola and Somaliland.
One of Abu Dhabi Ports' first targets on the continent is the Angolan province of Benguela, where two tenders are currently underway, one for a port and the second for a logistics corridor. The first is the container terminal of the port of Lobito, for which the deadline for the tender is 30 September. The second and most important is the logistic corridor used to transport the ore to the mining terminal of the port (ex-Caminho de Ferro de Benguela), the subject of a second tender open until 7 December.
Through other state vehicles, most notably the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the emirate has already invested in logistics corridors in Africa, in particular in the construction of roads between the port of Berbera in Somaliland and the Gabiley region on the border between Somaliland and Ethiopia. But this development is related to a project by DP World, which manages the port of Berbera and is currently digging a deep-water basin. In Angola, Abu Dhabi Ports plans to operate an end-to-end port and logistics hub.
Abu Dhabi Ports is also interested in projects in Cameroon and Congo. Its expansion into Africa is supported by its shareholder, ADQ, which is chaired by the emirate's national security adviser, Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan. ADQ acquired a stake last year in agricultural trader Louis Dreyfus Commodities, also very active in Africa.
The main unknown in the rapid expansion program remains the relationship between Abu Dhabi Ports and DP World. Officially, the two companies work in harmony and have even thought about merging to finance their respective development. The proposed merger never materialized, however, the two groups are fierce rivals on the ground, particularly in the Gulf, and their relations in Africa are bound to be increasingly conflicted.
All this does nothing but confirm on the one hand how the UAE is engaging in fierce competition with the Chinese in the context of logistics and on the other hand how the Arab countries must protect the strategic hubs of Bab al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz. As regards China in particular, it is certainly no coincidence that DP World has turned its attention to Djibouti and, in particular, to the port of Doraleh.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/cosa-fa-abu-dhabi-in-africa-contro-la-cina/ on Fri, 01 Oct 2021 06:39:10 +0000.