South Africa’s port system is quite strong but it is featuring regional disparities. Traffics have increase dramatically in the last forty years, mainly because of the rise of the historical, multifunctional port of Durban, and of two bulk-oriented, industrial seaports, namely Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay. In the first case, containers but also crude oil and refined products are dominant ; the two other ports are oriented towards dry bulks exports, with coal on the one hand and iron ore on the other hand. Another new port, Coega, entered into the game in 2009, with in the long term a balanced traffic structure combining these ingredients, but with manganese exports as far as dry bulks are concerned. A major railway corridor will also be behind its success. However industrial development has not met yet there the initial expectations, and moreover Coega will still be facing some local competition in Algoa Bay, where Port Elizabeth will remain operational in a few traffic niches. In the first twenty years of the post-apartheid era, there was a strong political support behind the Coega project in order to assist the previously neglected Eastern Cape province ; this is still the case nowadays, but to a lesser extent as attention should also be paid to the Northern Cape province in terms of a more balanced regional development through the Boegoe Bay port project.