The government has announced that it has entered into a new agreement with its partners Arise and the French fund Meridiam for the construction and operation of a new container terminal in the autonomous port of Nouakchott. Prior to the arrival of the French fund, another agreement had been signed by the regime of former President Aziz 2018 with the company Arise, but this agreement had been classified as dubious by a parliamentary report demanding that it be repealed or renegotiated. In the end, the last option was chosen.
as reported from Nouakchott, Salem Mejbour
Three months of negotiations to lead to the new convention. The Mauritanian Minister for Equipment and Transport, Mouhamedou Ahmedou M’Haïmid, confirms this: the negotiations were difficult.
The same analysis for Sid’Ahmed Ould Raiss, Director General of the Autonomous Port (PAN), who welcomes the results achieved: “Today, Mauritania benefits in terms of revenues and tax savings of approximately 140 billion throughout the concession period. We are very pleased with this agreement and we believe that it will give the port of Nouakchott more competitiveness because we will have a depth of 16 meters and that is something that is extremely important in the future. “
No more monopoly on the port
Unlike the previous agreement, Arise will not have a monopoly on the management activities of the Autonomous Port of Nouakchott. The Director – General of the Port chaired the Commission, which made this renegotiation possible: “It has been specified in the current amendment that the seven stations in the Autonomous Port of Nouakchott will continue to receive containers and that exclusivity only applies to the Container Terminal container terminal. She can handle the containers but others can also handle the containers. We took care to explain that. “
This new agreement allows Mauritania to receive $ 400 million over a 15-year operating period. Originally, the business provided 30 years of operation and far too many tax breaks for Arise.
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