International ports

France’s River Seine port of Rouen has for a long time made a speciality of the north-south regular container trades, particularly those between northern Europe and west Africa. But the port no longer sees a future for itself as a major container port, not even as one specializing in the north Europe-Africa trades.

The government of Cyprus believes that the island’s position in the Mediterranean makes it a natural choice as an international port and logistics hub.

Evergreen Line and King Ocean Services will begin calling Haiti’s new Port Lafito in the coming months, according to port developers GB Group.

The long-stalled privatization of the port of Piraeus is finally underway with three foreign companies bidding for control of the leading Mediterranean transhipment hubs.

Sinda-Rio, the ship agents association for Rio de Janeiro, is protesting an effort by a group of port workers to do what they deem unnecessary work that will adds cost to shippers using Brazil’s third busiest port.

Roughly 650 union dockworkers at the busiest terminal in Callao, Peru, the largest container gateway for the west coast of South America, have threatened to begin an indefinite strike Wednesday.

Logistics providers in India’s Nhava Sheva Port complex reported a “system outage” temporarily disrupted truck traffic at Jawaharlal Nehru Container Terminal Sunday late afternoon, adding to inland infrastructure woes that had already been building there in the past year.

After more than 18 months of delays, the much heralded first phase of Brazil’s more than Reais 10 billion ($3.36 billion) port concession program received the go-ahead to proceed from the Tribunal de Contas da Uniao.

South Korea's Busan port is consolidating its position as northeastern Asia’s transshipment hub.

The port authority for Santos in Brazil, Codesp, has been given permission to increase rates by a whopping 31.7 percent, and shippers should prepare for the increased costs.

Container volumes at major state-owned port complexes in India expanded 3.9 percent year-over-year in April, the first month of fiscal year 2015-16, continuing a healthy growth trend seen during the past year, according to the latest provisional port statistics compiled by JOC.com.

India signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran to build and operate cargo facilities at the Chabahar port, a free trade zone site on the Gulf of Oman, with the aim of allowing New Delhi a sea-land access route to Afghanistan.

Port Metro Vancouver, Canada’s largest port, is a step closer to building a new container terminal. The port has submitted an environmental impact statement for a new three-berth container terminal in Delta, British Columbia.

Logistics providers out of India’s largest container port complex — Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust — are again reporting abrupt terminal gate closings and long truck waits, even as the stakeholders put in place a spate of proactive steps to streamline gate activity and truck flow in the past few months.

Greek dock workers are due to stage a 24-hour strike on Thursday to protest the privatization of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki.

European shipowners have appealed the European Parliament to change the European Commission's proposed EU port services regulation, notably by reincluding proposals to open up cargo-handling and passenger services to competition.

Greece is expected to launch the long delayed privatization of the port of Piraeus, a top 10 European container hub, this week as its leftist government reluctantly undertakes reforms demanded by its international creditors.

Capacity additions coupled with higher cargo volumes fueled a 33 percent year-over-year jump in Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone’s consolidated net earnings in fiscal year 2014-15, which ended March 31.

$1.1 billion terminal operator ICTSI sold its stake in a Japanese container terminal on Okinawa to focus on other global port operations.

A deeper channel and additional berths will help South Korea's Busan Port Authority keep up with rising container volumes and bigger box ships.

Europe's largest inland port to grow as ultra-large container ships arrive at north European ports.

Panama’s cabinet council has approved a request by the Panama Canal Authority to implement volume-based discounts for container ships. The new toll schedule will take effect April 1, 2016.

A fast-growing terminal operator at the port Rio Grande wants to expand its quay so it can handle three vessels each with capacities of 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent units instead of just two that size.

Major ocean shipping companies are warning customers using Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust — India’s biggest container handler — to expect service delays this weekend in response to a 12-hour power outage planned by local authorities May 1 for electrical upgrades in the harbor.

Saudi Global Ports has opened its newest container terminal in Dammam’s King Abdul Aziz Port.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, India’s biggest private port infrastructure developer, is poised to snap up another container port contract in the country.

For a region dismissed not so long ago as a bit of a backwater, where inefficiency, corruption and chronic congestion were the norm, east Africa is beginning to show its mettle.

The privatization of Kingston Container Terminal should help revive transshipment, but the new operator will face competitive challenges

In an attempt to lure more container cargo, India’s Mumbai Port Trust has extended its previously introduced trade incentive schemes for another year, ending in March 2016.

APM Terminals, the Maersk group’s port operating arm, will officially open the world’s first fully automated container terminal in Rotterdam Friday.

A private sector-led campaign to lobby Brazilian authorities to allow Santos harbor to be deepened to allow the handling of larger ships is gaining momentum.

The Mexican government is pumping $5 billion — more than 77 billion pesos — into its network of 117 ports, as the country’s rising middle class demands more imports and Mexico rises as a regional manufacturing powerhouse.

U.S. containerized exports to the east coast of South America will shrink in 2015 by 2.4 percent from the prior year, thanks to unfavorable exchange rates between the Brazilian real and dollar, and subdued demand from Latin America’s biggest economic engine.

Throughput jumped 7.2 percent year-over-year at the port of Rotterdam in the first quarter, driven in part by strong container traffic at Europe's largest port.

China’s grand dream of a maritime Silk Road for the 21st Century is paving the way for Chinese port operators to spread their way of conducting domestic business beyond Chinese borders.

APM Terminals at India’s Port of Nhava Sheva, or Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, said its terminal gates are operating normally and that truck queues outside the terminal are not “unusually” long.

Antwerp’s container traffic surged 9.5 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, outpacing growth in all other cargo sectors.

Shippers and logistics providers using APM Terminals-operated Gateway Terminals India, or APMT Mumbai, are still facing delays because of bottlenecks related to rubber-tire gantry crane operations and gate activity, according to shipping sources in Nhava Sheva.

Operations at the port of Santos, Brazil, are expected to return to normal within the next couple of days as container terminals work through a backlog caused by the eight-day-long inferno at South America’s largest container gateway. The fire burnt out over the weekend.