APM’s Senior Press Officer, Marko Mihajić said in an email response this week that so far The Hague headquartered company is busy concentrating on improving operations at several ports that it operates in Africa.
“Of course we always investigate potential upcoming opportunities in markets where we are not present, but at the moment there is no specific engagement in Tanzania,” Mihajic said saying however that currently he has little information on the topic.
In 2012, APM Terminals had contacted Ministry of Transport seeking to invest at Dar es Salaam Port Berth 13 and 14 but failed to do so because officials were in working with an unknown Chinese firm which wanted to invest billions of shillings.
The then APM Terminals Vice President responsible for business development, Hans Ole Madsen said the company failed to reach a deal with Tanzania Ports Authority and Ministry of Transport to invest in Berths 13 and 14.
“APM Terminals have made various suggestions to Tanzania Ports Authority including assisting TPA on berths 5-6-7 where they currently operate.
In addition APM Terminals have offered to take on the construction of berths 13-14 but the feedback we have so far from the Transport Ministry is that there are ongoing discussions with Chinese companies, which have given similar offers,” Madsen said in an electronic message.
He said the Ministry of Transport is currently re-visiting the company’s proposals to acquire Berths 13 and 14 and that APM Terminals sees a lot of promise in the port of Dar es Salaam where only TPA and Tanzania International Container Terminal Services handle cargo.
“We believe that it can only benefit the port and the country to have the entry of another world-class port operator, which would introduce competition at the port to the benefit of all port users,” he noted.
As part of A.P.Moller-Maersk, APM Terminals currently operates Côte d’Ivoire Terminal and Tema Port in Ghana.
The conglomerate also operates ports in Costa Rica, Italy and the US. “We invested U$ 438m in our terminals, with the largest investments being a terminal modernisation project in Los Angeles, USA, and equipment replacements,” the group said in a recent report.
During 2020, investments continued with the development of our new Côte d’Ivoire Terminal (CIT) in Côte d’Ivoire, the expansion of APM Terminals Yokohama in Japan, equipment upgrades at our Russian terminals, the report stated.
Source: IPP Media
