COTONOU

Cotonou is located at the mouth of Lake NAKOUE on the southern coast of Benin (full name: THE REPUBLIC OF BENIN), on the north side of the Bay of Benin, and is the largest seaport in Benin. Founded in 1964, it is an outer port of the capital city of Porto Novo, about 35km away. It is now the center of the country's economy and foreign trade, and the maritime gateway of Benin. The main industries include machinery, electricity, cement, oil extraction, food, textiles, and daily chemical products. The railway leads north to PARAKOU, and the highway provides direct access to Niger. The port is also a transit port for imported and exported goods from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. The port is about 5km away from the international airport and there are regular flights to Europe and other places. The port has a tropical rainforest climate with prevailing southwest winds. The annual average temperature is about 22-34 ℃. The average annual rainfall is about 1300mm. The high tide is 1.5m. There are 5 main berths in the port area, with a coastline of 1280m and a maximum water depth of 11m. The loading and unloading equipment includes tugboats, oil pipelines with diameters of 150-200mm, and roll on/roll off facilities, among which the tugboat has a maximum power of 1470 kW. The warehouse area of the port area is 80000 square meters, and there is also a container yard of 65000 square meters. The railway extends directly to the dock for loading and unloading. The maximum reliable ship capacity at the dock is 40000 deadweight tons. The storage area in the bonded zone of Hong Kong is approximately 60000 square meters. In 1992, the container throughput was 28000 TEUs. The main export goods are peanuts, cotton, palm oil, and palm kernels, while the imported goods mainly include textiles, machinery and equipment, food, and fuel. If overtime is required during holidays, advance arrangements must be made.