St. Lucia Marine Terminals, SPRC take 2009 Caribbean Port Awards
The Caribbean Shipping Association has selected St. Lucia Marine Terminals and the Port of Cartagena (SPRC) as the leading ports in the region. The Association announced its selections at its annual banquet in Paramaribo on Wednesday, October 14.

St. Lucia won the award for the Best Multi-purpose Terminal while the Colombian port took the award for Best Container Terminal.

Cartagena has won the top Container Terminal award previously, in three successive years – 2005, 2006 and 2007. St. Lucia has also won previously. The port at Castries won in 1988 and 1990.

SECTIONAL AWARDS
This year the CSA decided to make special awards in four categories – Efficiency, Growth and Development, Safety and Security and Dependability.
         The Sectional Award for Efficiency went to Kingston Wharves Limited in Jamaica.
         Trinidad and Tobago’s Point Lisas Port Development Company (PLIPDECO) was recognized for Growth and Development
         Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) in Panama took the Safety and Security award.
         Recognition for Dependability went to Guadeloupe. Last year, 2008, the top Multi-purpose Terminal award went to Guadeloupe

Never on Sunday...or Monday to Saturday
by Mike Wackett

Unlike Ilya in the iconic 1960's Piraeus-based film, 1,500 dockers at Greek's largest port are also refusing to work Monday to Saturday: they are demanding that the newly-elected socialist Pasok party overturns a 35-year concession won by China's Cosco Pacific to operate the Mediterranean port's container terminals.


Last year the previous Conservative administration pushed through a tender process for the part-privatisation of two of the three Piraeus container terminals - Piers 11 and 111 - in the face of strong opposition from the union and a series of protest strikes and industrial action.

At the time it was reported that about 10 'international parties' had requested tender documentation; including a 'who's who' of terminal operators: DP World, Cosco Pacific, APM Terminals and Hutchison Port Holdings.
The 'prize' was ultimately claimed by Cosco Pacific with a winning bid of EUR831 million for the operating concession; including an undertaking to spend a further EUR235 million on an overdue upgrading of the facilities.

The Chinese had Piraeus on their radar for some time and Greece had spent years trying to convince the Asian powerhouse of its geographically strategic role as a trade partner. Indeed, such was the high profile nature of this deal that China's President Hu Jintao personally attended the official opening ceremony last November.

And conscious of the previous discord, Cosco's group chairman, Wei Jiafu said ahead of the ceremony that the unions had 'nothing to fear' from the concession but that in contrast, the agreement would result in an increase in jobs.
Wei pledged that Cosco would develop the Greek port into a major transhipment centre; particularly in regard to Eastern Europe and the near East.

But 12 months on, and post-Lehman, Cosco Pacific will have its work cut out to return the port to its former status, with the current industrial action a major setback to its ambitious business plan.

Moreover, in 2008 the port saw its throughput tank by 68.5% to 431,000 TEU, versus the previous year - the consequence of the protracted dispute - a far cry from its 2003 - 2007 average of 1.4 million TEU.
And, within this dire result, transhipment traffic - the key to future growth - accounting for 40% of 2007's 1.4 million TEU throughput - was almost non-existent.

The Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) could only rue the substantial business lost in 2008, with mega carriers such as MSC unlikely to return to test the water until there is evidence of stability.

Nevertheless, when Cosco Pacific formally commenced its 35-year tenancy on October 1, that was the plan; a new confident start and a sales drive to regain lost custom.

But meanwhile, timed to coincide with Cosco's moving-in date, and spoiling the housewarming party, the dockers' trade union called a strike. 15 days later an estimated 12,000 containers remain hostage - frustrated and rotting - and ocean carriers have long since diverted their vessels to other ports; the 2009 peak season pre-Christmas rush has been lost.

Moreover, the new Papandreou government has a problem: in opposition it was against the privatisation and supportive of the protests: unsurprisingly the union now feels it has the upper hand.

Ramping up the rhetoric, the union warned that industrial action would continue 'until a final victory is achieved': it is demanding that the government put an 'immediate stop' to the Cosco Pacific contract. While banners erected by dockers insultingly rage: 'Cosco Go Home', adding fuel to the fire of the militants and disrespecting the Chinese company and its own government's legally-binding agreement.

Meanwhile, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and retail associations are urging the government to resolve the dispute, which they bemoaned is paralysing trade and destroying businesses in a country struggling to emerge from a severe recession.

On taking office, the American-born Papandreou, promised to launch a 100-day plan to boost the crisis-stricken Greek economy. He would be well-advised to use a few of these days to personally intervene in the dock dispute, before Cosco Pacific unilaterally decide to tear up its copy of the agreement and confidence in Greece's premier port plunges to an all time low.


How do you see the Piraeus dock crisis being resolved?
The editor would be delighted to hear your views:michael.wackett@informa.com

Expansion reverses cutbacks announced in July
Evergreen Line, which is one of the few container lines that has refrained from ordering new ships in recent years, plans to order 100 container ships in 2010 to expand its fleet to nearly 300, the company's founder Chang Yung-Fa told the United Daily News.
The ambitious ordering plan comes as the global financial crisis is coming to an end, Chang told the Taiwanese newspaper, according to PortWorld.
''Doing the shipping business is not running a grocery store. You have to have vision,'' Chang was quoted as saying.
Chang predicted in 2007 that a general economic recovery would not begin until 2012, so Evergreen had not invested in new ships over the past two years.
The 81-year-old Chang hopes to steer Evergreen, which is currently the world's fourth-largest container line, into becoming the world's largest container line in his lifetime, the Taiwanese daily said.
At present, the world's top five container shipping firms are A.P. Moller-Maersk, with 533 ships, Mediterranean Shipping Co (401 ships), CMA CGM (357 ships), Evergreen (157 ships) and Hapag-Lloyd (115 ships), according to AXS-Alphaliner.
Even if Evergreen increases its fleet by another 100 container ships, its world ranking could still remain at number four.
These latest expansion plans were announced even though the company had announced early in July that it would soon withdraw a sixth of its capacity in an effort to ease oversupply of tonnage in the container ship industry, confirming media reports that it planned to scrap and redeliver a total of 31 container vessels.
"Those still owned by Evergreen Group companies will be scrapped while the remainder will be redelivered back to their owners as the current charter periods end," the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on July 8.