Kaohsiung Harbor, the world's sixth-largest container port, is inviting international tenders for building a deep-water container terminal to boost its volume, a port official said yesterday.
"We welcome shipping firms and port-management companies from all over the world to submit tenders for this 50-year BOT [build-operate-transfer] project," Harbor Master Huang Kuo-ying (
The Kaohsiung International Container Terminal includes four 16m berths. Bidding will be closed in August and the winner will be announced by year's end, according to the tender invitation document posted on the Kaohsiung Harbor's Web site.
At least one berth should begin operation by the end of 2011 and the remaining three should begin operating by the end of 2013. The bidding firms or consortiums must be 100-percent foreign ownership. The minimum rights fee for operating the terminal or 50 years is NT$360 million (US$10.9 million).
Huang said several foreign firms, including APL Ltd, Hyundai Ship Building, Hanjin Shipping Co and a Japanese consortium have expressed interest in the project.
But the Chinese-language Commercial Times daily said many foreign shipping lines and port management companies have lost interest in the Kaohsiung International Container Terminal due to delays in its construction and the emergence of container ports in neighboring countries, particularly China.
"Only Maersk Co and the consortium CKYH led by Yang Ming Group (陽明海運) have shown keen interest in it because their berths are now at two different container terminals at the Kaohsiung Harbor," the newspaper said.
CKYH is the shipping alliance grouping COSCO Group, K-Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin.
But Huang dismissed the report, saying the tender invitation announcement had only been posted on Kaohsiung Harbor's Web site last Friday, "so foreign investors haven't begun to respond yet.
Construction cost is estimated at NT$5.9 billion.
Kaohsiung Harbor was the world's busiest container port in 1999, but its ranking has fallen due to the expansion of neighboring ports and Taiwan's ban on direct shipping with China. Currently the harbor is the world's sixth-largest container port after Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Busan.
To boost harbor's competitiveness, the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau decided to build the International Container Terminal to attract foreign shipping lines, some of which are skipping Kaohsiung and sailing directly to China.
The harbor now has five container terminals, the deepest of which is 14.5m deep.
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