THE PORT Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) yesterday sealed a $13 billion deal with Maersk Shipping Line to provide mainly trans-shipment services at the Kingston Container Terminal over five years.
The contract was signed by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
The PAJ, however, will first have to expand the current capacity of the Kingston Container Terminal and install the necessary berthing, equipment and container storage facilities by April 2006 to accommodate Maersk, which has more than 300 container vessels and transports more than one million containers worldwide.
Mr. Patterson said approval was granted by Cabinet for Government to proceed with phase five of the port expansion programme which will double the capacity of the port from 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 3.2 million TEUs. He said the equipment has already been ordered, the design work was currently being done and the expansion of the container yard was in progress. This phase will cost some US$200 million (J$13 billion).
DEADLINE TOO CLOSE
But Noel Hylton, the PAJ's president and chief executive officer, said the deadline was too close as the port would not be able to upgrade and install the necessary equipment and facilities by April.
"We can never finish by the time the first set of equipment arrives here in April. Two of the ship-to-shore cranes will arrive in December and the other four will arrive in 2007," Mr. Hylton explained. "These things take a long time but we have planned how we are going to operate until then," he added.
The Prime Minister said the contract with Maersk, the largest container shipping line in the world, was a confirmation of the importance of the maritime and shipping sector to national development and the government's commitment to the development of the island's port.
