Heavily involved in West Africa, APM Terminals now looks to East Africa
2012 03 29
- Details
APM TERMINALS has announced it is bullish on high-growth East African markets and is planning investments in new terminal and inland services for the region, with its sights mainly set on Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.
To emphasise that East Africa is a new direction for expansion of the company's global port, terminal and inland services, APM Terminals, a unit of Denmark's AP Moller group, held its annual Africa-Middle East Region's leadership meeting in Mombasa.
"There are great business and growth opportunities in East Africa and this is not new territory for APM Terminals," said Peder Sondergaard, CEO for the Africa-Middle East region, who noted that Logistics Container Centre Mombasa (LCCM), part of APM Terminals' inland services, has been in operation since 1997.
Mr Sondergaard and other senior officials including CEO Kim Fejfer recently visited Kenya and met with Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga and Trade Minister Amos Kimunya for talks, as well as meetings with local business and industry leaders in Mombasa and Nairobi Kenya's capital.
"We are very interested in participating in and contributing to the high-growth potential of the Ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, and are eager for the opportunity to expand our global port and terminal network into East Africa," said Mr Sondergaard.
The company operates nine ports in eight West African countries, and has operations in both Morocco's Tanger-Med port and Egypt's Suez Canal container terminal, as well as an extensive inland network across the continent. However, it does not have any port operations on the continent's east coast.
The terminal operator said talks are underway with the Tanzanian Ministry of Transport and the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) to operate at the Port of Dar es Salaam, which handled 475,000 TEU in 2011.
"We believe it would only benefit the port and the country to introduce a leading global port operator at Dar es Salaam, which would introduce healthy competition to the benefit of all port users," said APM Terminals' Africa-Middle East regional vice president for business development, Hans-Ole Madsen.
Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
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