Tunisia’s Transport Ministry and Ports Authority are finalising details of a project to add two new quays to the country’s main port, at Rades near Tunis.

The authorities will invite expressions of interest for the 60 million dinar ($39 million) project later this year. The extension will more than double the port’s capacity by adding 450,000 20-foot equivalent units, taking total capacity to 870,000 TEUs.

Expressions of interest will be invited in May for a second project, to develop a logistics zone at Rades. Tunis is keen to consult with potential bidders before finalising details. A previous invitation to tender, under the government of ousted president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, foundered in part over the relatively costly work needed to make the soil suitable for construction.

Container traffic at Rades fell 36 per cent last year, due to disruption caused by strikes and demonstrations following the revolution in January 2011. As Tunisian exporters and importers urge urgent improvement, the new government has said customs officials must work with “100 per cent” transparency. It has also signaled there will be zero tolerance of malpractices at the operating company Societe Tunisienne d’Acconage et Manutention (Stam). A second Tunisian operating company is to be introduced to the port to compete with Stam.

In the longer term, Tunisia is seeking to claw back some of the shipping traffic it lost to Malta during the Ben Ali years, when several major shippers shunned Rades. A badly needed deep-water port is planned, as a major investment inspired in part by Morocco’s Tanger-Med. Under the Ben Ali regime, the transport ministry got as far as reviewing expressions of interest for a project to construct a deep-water port at Enfida near Sousse. Now Bizerte, on the country’s north coast, is under study as a possible alternative location.