Antigua Port Authority Explores Building Facility on Barbuda

Antigua Port Authority officials are still exploring the possibility of building a facility on the sister isle of Barbuda.

Port Manager Darwin Telemaque said the design must match the island’s rapid growth and development.

“What we designed for River Dock resulted from the devastation from Hurricane Irma. But since Irma, the reality on that island has changed. You have so many more businesses going in there. Large tourism resorts are being constructed, more planned, so many more planned.”

He added that his team is moving at pace to make the first assessments of the River Dock project on the Sister Isle.

“My entire technical team led by Evron Zachariah and a couple of the engineers, will be flying over to Barbuda this week, and we’re going to go back to River Dock. We’re going to take a look at River Dock, look at the emerging surroundings, to see how that fits. We’ll be taking a look at Barbuda as a whole,” he said.

Upon completion, this initiative will align Barbuda with mainland Antigua’s advancements, exemplified by the $90 million upgrade and expansion of the St. John’s port initiated on January 15, 2018.

Under the auspices of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, construction was entrusted to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. and predominantly funded by a concessional loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.”