# Beira (MZ BEW)

**UN/LOCODE:** MZ BEW  
**Country:** Mozambique  
**Water Body:** Mozambique Channel; Indian Ocean  
**Harbor Size:** Medium  
**Harbor Type:** Coastal (Natural)  
**GPS:** -19.8333, 34.8333

Two railway lines and a constantly dredged estuary channel are the backbone of Beira: the Machipanda line running 317 km to the Zimbabwe border at Mutare, and the Sena line reaching 575 km inland to the Moatize coalfields in Tete. Mozambique's second-largest port, it is the principal ocean gateway for landlocked Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana and the DRC, and in 2024 handled about 412,000 TEU and 4.05 million tonnes of general cargo — ranked the most efficient port in Southern Africa on the World Bank's Container Terminal Performance Index. Container and general-cargo operations have been run since 1998 by Cornelder de Moçambique, a joint venture between state operator CFM and the Netherlands' Cornelder Holding, while CFM separately runs the oil and coal terminals. Cornelder is investing around US$120 million over the coming years to raise container capacity to 700,000 TEU and general cargo to 5 million tonnes, partly to absorb traffic diverting from congested South African ports. Beira's chief constraint is depth: the approach requires constant dredging, which caps vessel size. Shippers needing larger boxships or deeper draft look to Nacala in northern Mozambique or Durban in South Africa. For corridor traffic into the southern African interior, however, Beira remains the first choice, with well-established customs transit procedures through CFM and Cornelder.

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*Freight Academy — Seaport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/beira-port-mz-bew](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/beira-port-mz-bew)*

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*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/seaports/beira-port-mz-bew/llm-summary?lang=en*