The Calabar Economic City (CEC) is being developed as a future world scale industrial manufacturing cluster. The City, covering some 350 hectares, will provide all the essential requirements for companies seeking to set up manufacturing, assembly or distribution businesses in West Africa. The City of Calabar is in Cross River State, Nigeria and thus centrally located for doing business in West and Central Africa.
Having undertaken extensive industrial surveys, the developers, African Port Assets (APA), will provide the following, identified as key requirements:
- Fully serviced in terms of uninterruptable power, potable water and waste treatment
- Good transportation links – the City has its own multi user integrated port and is likely to be linked to the Nigerian rail network in the future.
- Accommodation with leisure, medical and educational facilities for tenants’ staff.
It will be possible to rent premises ranging from 100 m2 start up units to individual plots of up to 20 hectares. Part of the industrial area will be a Free Trade Zone. The existing Calabar Free Trade Zone is approximately 2kms away. APA are targeting companies in the list of pioneer industries and activities that are thus eligible for tax incentives.
The CEC will be ideal for companies involved in the agricultural and food processing industries. The CEC is an ideal location for those companies manufacturing farm machinery or processing foodstuffs, as well as those companies in the support industries, such as paper and packaging.
The project is the final stages of permitting and plans to start construction work on Phase 1 in 2023 with first occupancy in late 2025.
The key elements of the facility will be:
- Multi user multi cargo port with an initial quay length of 400m, offering domestic and international shipping links
- 120 hectares of rentable/serviced industrial space, and upon which, with the exception of the start-up units, tenants can build their own facilities
- 80 hectares of gated accommodation ranging from short stay (single status) to long stay (family status) facilities for tenants’ visitors and employees, and
- 45 hectares reserved for a ship repair facility that could be developed into a major shipyard in the long term.
The industrial plots will be available for long term lease periods.
The Calabar Airport is some 5 kms away and can accommodate aircraft as large as an Airbus A350, though existing passenger services generally use Boeing 737’s.
The main entrance of the CEC is at the north of the site and will provide immediate access to the road network north of Calabar.
Calabar is connected to high speed fibre optic cable thus offering good telecommunication links internationally. APA are also targeting data centre operators, so that will provide local data/cloud storage facilities.
