Abu Dhabi Ports signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) to pump $1bn (AED4bn) into a new container terminal at Khalifa Port.
MSC will invest $1bn in a three-decade deal to transform Abu Dhabi’s deepwater Khalifa Port into a regional hub for container handling.
Under the agreement, Khalifa Port’s 12 ship-to-shore cranes will be more than doubled to 25 in the next two years.
Shipping berths will be deepened to make Khalifa Port the first in the region capable of receiving the world’s largest shipping vessels that specialise in bulk cargo, according to the Emirates News Agency (WAM).
Capacity at two container terminals at Khalifa Port will increase to more than 8.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a measure used to explain cargo capacity of a ship or terminal.
The 30-year agreement was signed by the chief executive officers of Abu Dhabi Ports and MSC, Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi and Diego Aponte respectively.
