The world’s number two container carrier Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) will heavily invest in southern Italy in the coming years as Gianluigi Aponte’s group has just emerged as the new sole owner of the container terminal of the port of Naples and it’s interested in operating a new drydock due to be realized in Gioia Tauro.
In the transhipment hub based in the Calabria region and where MSC already controls the local Medcenter Container Terminal through a 50-50 joint venture with Contship Italia, the local port authority, in order to face the current crisis of cargo traffic slowdown, decided to invest some €75m ($82m) for purchasing and installing a floating drydock capable of receiving ultra large container carriers at the heart of the Mediterranean. The new infrastructure should be open for work in less than three years and MSC has already sent a letter to the port’s commissioner, Andrea Agostinelli, expressing its interest at managing it alone or with other partners.
Another good news for the port based in Calabria came recently when Grimaldi Group’s ceo, Emanuele Grimaldi, said at a conference held in Naples that his group bought from the German group BLG a 50% stake in the Gioia Tauro car terminal through a subsidiary called Automar, which offers logistics services to the automotive industry.
The last but not least deal for southern Italy’s maritime industry took place in the port of Naples and involved again MSC who has just purchased from Cosco the remaining 50% stake of the local container terminal called Conateco which handled some 330,000 teu last year and is capable of working containerships up to 5,000 teu capacity.
