It's been a long time since the old bank in Eritrea's main Red Sea port had a customer. Like much of the ancient city of Massawa, it was devastated by heavy Ethiopian bombing raids during its liberation in 1990 by Eritrean guerrilla fighters. Today, hungry cats prowl the once elegant colonial-era building, ornate plasterwork lies in piles of rubble and the bank's thick vault door hangs inches open – rusted solid, with only spider webs visible in its tantalizingly inaccessible gloom. But towering above its bullet-pocked and crumbling facade tall cranes turn slowly as they heave up containers from a boat onto the dock. The cranes are new, part of ambitious plans to revitalize the steamy port – once one of the busiest in east Africa – by declaring a 1,100 hectare (2,717 acre) free trade zone to attract investment and boost Eritrea's tightly controlled economy. “We believe it can be an engine to transform Eritrea's economy,” said Dr. Araia Tseggai, chief executive of the Eritrean Free Zones Authority. “It will help develop an internationally competitive business sector,” Araia added, stressing its position, “ideally sited” on the busy shipping route between the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The free zone is planned to include warehousing facilities, manufacturing and assembly plants, commercial trading and services for shipping. State media boasts that half a billion nakfa (33 million dollars) has already been spent. A new airport has been constructed, roads upgraded, a lavish sea-front hotel near completion and an army of national service conscripts drafted in to toil on the construction of rows of apartment blocks. “A country can't attract investment without infrastructure,” Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki said, speaking in a recent interview printed in state media. “By putting in place very good infrastructure and service for handling... that could be an opportunity for regional and global markets.” But it's a tough task to revitalize Massawa's economy, with industry and trade stifled by a long-running border deadlock with arch-foe Ethiopia. Analysts continue to warn of a potential return to hostilities following a 1998-2000 border war. Some quarter of million troops face each other across no-man's land, with tensions raised after United Nations peacekeepers pulled out of border zones this month after Eritrea cut their fuel supply. “It's a ghost town,” said one elderly port worker, wearily waving a stick at a dozen scrawny cats begging for fish scraps. He pointed to the once busy bars, now largely empty with the young conscripted into a giant national service program, and bar workers rounded up and sent for tough military training in the hot surrounding desert. __
