The Kingdom of Bahrain’s state-of-the-art newly built Khalifa Bin Salman Port has added a new dimension to its cargo sector with handling of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) reaching half a million in 2012, a 60% up over 2011, a senior official revealed.
Simon G Brebner, Chief Commercial Officer at APM Terminals one the sidelines of launch two additional tugboats on Wednesday told The 24X7 News that Bahrain with its latest port equipment and strategic location will continue to benefit from cargo business despite stiff regional competition.
“APM Terminals will continue to invest in infrastructure and human capital as part of maintaining growth sustainability of cargo sector. At present we have around $40 million cranes to cater for the full time need of the port operations. We will continue to invest when there is any opportunity,” he added.
Marco Neelsen, Chief Executive Officer, during an interview lauded Bahrain’s maritime industry which he said would continue to be competitive to meet the targets spelled out in the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Economic Vision of 2030.
“We have seen a double digit growth of 11% in cargo sector in the Middle East while the rest of the global economy is passing through difficult times,” Neelsen, said, adding the Q1 of 2013 was also good and the business towards end of the year would yield even positive results.
Talking about business, he said cargo demand in Bahrain was on the rise, thanks to the quite strong exports to Middle East and Asia.
“Bahrain enjoys many inherent advantages as the shipments can reach in an eight hours time due to efficient port and strategic location. Also Bahrain site next to the region’s largest economy Saudi Arabia and link through causeway is a huge advantage,” he said.
Responding to a question about the competition he said competition yields perfection and efficiency in business and APM Terminals firmly believes in it.