EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
TOC Africa to tackle
pan-African trade debate
Shippers, government, ocean carriers, logistics, and port executives will gather at the first ever TOC Africa
event in Durban from 5 to 6 December 2017 to address the challenges of improving trade flows
across Africa. Diarise this event now!
A
gility, APM Terminals, Borderless
Alliance, Dole South Africa, DP
World Maputo, Dube TradePort,
ICTSI DRC, and Walvis Bay Corridor
Group are among the latest confirmed
to join the pan-African trade debate at
the inaugural Terminal Operations
Conference (TOC) in Durban in
December this year.
Sihle Zikalala, MPL MEC for Economic
Development, Tourism and Environmental
Affairs for the province of KwaZulu-Natal,
will open proceedings at the TOC Africa
2017 conference and networking event,
which takes place at the Durban ICC
under the headline theme ‘Improving
Trade Flows Across Africa’.
KwaZulu-Natal and Transnet are the
official hosts of the first TOC ever to
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take place on the African continent in
the show’s more than 40-year history.
“We have no doubt that our hosting of
TOC Africa will help to bring physical
expression to the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative
by enabling Africa’s ports and port cities
to contribute to Africa’s growth and
development agenda,” says Zikalala.
With all major regions of Africa to be
represented in speaker panels as well
as delegate and visitor attendance,
TOC Africa will explore challenges
and opportunities for inter-continental
and intra-continental trade, transport,
and logistics, including investment in
infrastructure, information technology,
and digitisation.
The two-day Container Supply
Chain Conference track kicks off with
a look at the business, economic and
trade outlook for Africa, featuring
speakers from UNCTAD (the United
Nations Conference on Trade and
Development) and the South African
Department of Transport.
The conference then moves on to look
at the current reality and future vision
for trade flows across Africa, with the
second day providing a deep dive into
logistics hubs, logistics hinterland, logistics
clusters, and trade corridors.
Views from across the supply chain
will be represented, with speakers thus
far confirmed from Dole South Africa,
Citrus Growers of South Africa, Damco,
APM Terminals, DP World, ICTSI, the Port
Management Associations of West &
Central Africa (PMAWCA) and Eastern
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
and Southern Africa (PMAESA), Dube
TradePort, Smart City of Kigali, Walvis
Bay Corridor Group, and HafenAgentur,
among others.
Defining, designing, funding, and
operating the port and logistics
infrastructure of the future will be a
key theme, with international regional
operators of port terminals and logistics
clusters joined by African Infrastructure
Investment Managers (AIIM).
Africa still does very limited trade
with Africa and tackling current
barriers to cross-border trade is a
critical undertaking. “At TOC Africa,
I will discuss the importance of
technology in trade facilitation to solve
the ‘soft infrastructure’ bottlenecks
— governance, corruption, and non-
COLD LINK AFRICA • November | December 2017