French line CMA CGM has partnered with the municipality of Xiamen and Hong Kong's New World Services to invest and manage a deepwater container terminal in the East China city of Xiamen.
An agreement between the partners was signed in Beijing's Great Hall of the People in the presence of French president Nicolas Sarkozy andf his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
The terminal, CMA CGM's first port investment project in China, should be online by 2009. The size of the investment is unknown.
Jacques Saade, founder and president of CMA CGM, said in a statement that Xiamen would become a transhipment hub for the group in South China, allowing lines to rationalise their operations in the area.
He said the carrier also planned to invest in the ports of Tianjin in Northern China and in Shanghai's Yangshan Deepwater Port.
The port of Xiamen ranks 22nd in the world in container traffic with a throughput of more than four million TEUs in 2006 and 13 percent growth expected for 2007. CMA CGM expects to handle 280,000 TEUs out of China this year.
New World is a Hong Kong based group with several transport infrastructure projects in China, most in the ports of Xiamen, Tianjin, Dalian and Wenzhou.
The French group has shares in 16 port terminals in the world. It has already invested in China, where it acquired in 2006 an eight percent share in China Rail Intermodal, a project of more than US$1.6 billion to conceive, build and manage a network of 18 railway container stations, covering the entire Chinese territory.
CMA CGM has had a presence in China since 1992 and the container traffic it will handle this year ¨C 2.5 million boxes ¨C represents 10 percent of China's deep sea exports.
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