Hamburg port operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik has put a stop to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative expansion in the port of Trieste with the purchase of a majority stake of the newly built Piattaforma Logistica di Trieste container and multipurpose terminal.
The local port authority announced that Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) will take control of the terminal in two steps before the end of this year from the Italian shareholders Francesco Parisi group, Icop and Interporto di Bologna. Last year China Merchants was rumoured to be negotiating the same deal.
Piattaforma Logistica Trieste is a partnership formed by local companies to build and operate in a public private partnership with the Trieste Port Authority a new marine terminal in the Port of Trieste.
As from next January the new port infrastructure will be active and able to handle container, ro-ro and multipurpose ships along the two berths.
Angela Titzrath, chairwoman of HHLA, commented: “The Adriatic region has been developing very dynamically in the past few years. As the northernmost port in the Mediterranean, Trieste is the southern gateway to Central and Eastern Europe. The investment is a strategic expansion to our existing port and intermodal network. The terminal gives us the opportunity to actively participate in and help shape new and changing cargo flows and underline our ambitions to grow internationally. At the same time, we will continue to enhance our terminals in Hamburg by investing in facilities and technology. We are a Hamburg company, at home in Europe and operating globally.”
HHLA is one of Europe’s leading port and logistics companies with activities stretching beyond the Port of Hamburg into many parts of Europe including Odessa and Tallinn.
