Praia-Dakar Shipping and Maritime Services Project

<p>Cabo Verde is the only Island Country in the ECOWAS Community. Several Summits of ECOWAS Authority Heads of State and Government have called for projects and policies to strengthen the physical integration of Cabo Verde to the markets and economies of other mainland ECOWAS. A priority in the ECOWAS Infrastructure Development Master Plan is therefore to establish an efficient and effective Shipping and Maritime Service from the Ports of Cabo Verde to Dakar and other aligning Ports of Member States. In support of this, the governments of the Republic of Senegal and the Republic of Cabo Verde signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 28 April 2015 to confirm the willingness of both governments to assess opportunities to improve bilateral trade. In order to promote increased commercial activity, both countries intend to invest in shipping infrastructure. In this context, the establishment of a regular maritime link between the two countries could promote maritime transport and intensify trade. The Praia-Dakar Maritime Transport Service is part of of the Praia Dakar-Abidjan Corridor Development Program, as well as more than 3,500 kilometres Highway from Dakar and Abidjan in C&ocirc;te d'Ivoire, crosses five (5) other West African countries (Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia). This corridor was also identified as one of PIDA's main priority projects and labelled as Trans-African Highway 7 (TAH 7) which was to link THE TAH 8 that stretches from Lagos through Yaounde, Bangui, Kampala and Nairobi to the port city of Mombasa in Kenya, East Africa. </p>