Two container wharfs newly expanded for Evergreen Marine Corp (
The Tacoma Port Authority spent less than two years completing the container wharf expansion work and transferred its use to Evergreen Marine, Asia's biggest container shipper, for a 20-year lease period at a ceremony attended by Evergreen Group Vice Chairman Kuo Hsuan-yu (郭宣瑜) and port officials.
Efficiency
Speaking at the ceremony, Kuo said that the inauguration of the new wharfs with advanced equipment will help Evergreen Marine upgrade its shipping efficiency.
Timothy Farrell, executive director of Port of Tacoma, said the new project will further boost the economic development in the Tacoma area.
The port authority invested US$210 in the first-stage expansion project alone, which includes two 17m deep wharfs with a total area of 150 hectares and modern infrastructure, Farrell said.
Volume
The completion of the first-stage expansion project will help the marine transport company increase its container handling volume to 840,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) annually, Farrell said.
If Evergreen decides to carry out further expansion, its annual container handling volume will go up to 1.2 million TEUs, he said
Tacoma is the sixth-largest container port in North America.
New Deal
In view of a growing shipping business in China, earlier this month Evergreen signed a deal with the Chinese city of Ningbo for its first-ever port investment project in China. But such an investment was being routed through Evergreen's Italian shipping line, Lloyd Triestino, to avoid the sensitivity of direct investment in infrastructure projects in China, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported.
According to the Containerization International monthly, Evergreen is the world's third-largest container shipping line after Maersk-Sealand and Meditteranian Shipping Co (MSC). Evergreen has 151 container ships, of which 110 are self-owned.
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