In addition to Kenya, the port handles cargo to and from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, south Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.
Zambia, Ethiopia and Malawi are also considering using the Mombasa port as a gateway for some overseas markets.
"With the world economy sluggishly recovering from a two-year downturn, many ports have not fully recovered from negative growth," the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) managing director, Gichiri Ndua, said in a review seen by Reuters.
"It is therefore a blessing that the Port of Mombasa experienced modest growth and we are upbeat that we shall continue to perform even better."
The facility handled 513,000 20-foot equivalent container units (TEU) over the period, up from 460,000 in the first nine months of 2009, and much above its designed capacity of 250,000 TEU a year.
In tonnage, the container terminal at the port handled 14 million tons in the same period compared with 13.7 million tonnes handled in the first nine months of 2009.
Ndua said among targets they aimed to hit in 2010/2011 was attaining or exceeding a ship turnaround period of three days and a return on investment of 14.7 percent.
"In our continued effort to improve operational efficiency, we have started receiving some of the equipment that we had ordered," he said.
Ndua said the construction of a second container terminal and dredging of the port's main channel would begin next year.
The second terminal, whose first phase should be operational in 2013, is expected to cost an estimated $235 million. It will have a 1.2 million TEU capacity.
KPA also hopes to dredge the port to a deeper 15 metres from 13 metres to enable bigger ships to call at the port.
The port of Mombasa handled a total of 19.06 million tonnes in 2009, up from 16.41 million in the previous year.
The container terminal handled 618,816 TEUs in 2009, up from 615,733 in 2008. Over a quarter of 2009's total throughput, or 4.98 million tons, was transit cargo. (Reuters)
