Djibouti’s access to the sea means transportation accounts for 70% of the national economy
Euromoney is standing at Doraleh container terminal in Djibouti watching the good ship Callisto being unloaded on a busy wharf. It sounds an obscure place. But this is the perfect vantage point from which to understand the geopolitical importance of the small African state and some important things about China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In front of us is the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Through this bottleneck, just 18 miles across to Yemen at its narrowest point, as much as 20% of all global exports and 10% of total oil export transits pass by, most of it to or from the Suez Canal.
Behind, across about 40 miles of Djibouti’s parched volcanic landscape, is Ethiopia and behind that a host of other landlocked African states. Since the coastline south of here for more than 2,000 miles belongs to lawless Somalia, Djibouti’s port represents the only way Ethiopia and its interior neighbours can get their goods to and from the sea.
