The French maritime carrier and logistics company CMA CGM, led by Franco-Lebanese Rodolphe Saadé, has won a ten-year concession for the management, operation and maintenance of the container terminal in the port of Beirut starting in March 2022, have announced the Lebanese authorities on Thursday 17 February.
The French giant has specified that it wants to invest 33 million dollars (approximately 29 million euros) to upgrade and digitize the terminal’s equipment, including 19 million during the first two years, with the objective of reaching an annual volume of 1.4 million twenty-foot equivalent container (TEU). CMA CGM, which already generates nearly 55% of the volume of this terminal and employs 1,000 people in Lebanon, wants to create 400 jobs.
The offer of CMA Terminals, a subsidiary of the French giant, was selected by the temporary committee for the management and operation of the port of Beirut (GEPB) against that of the tandem formed by the Emirati Gulftainer, associated with the Lebanese entrepreneur Antoine E. Amatoury, following a call for tenders launched in November 2021. “CMA CGM was better on the technical offer and apparently a little better on the price”, comments a well-informed source. Shipping companies will pay for port services in dollars, which will replenish state coffers, while CMA CGM will collect a tax of 11 dollars and 285,000 Lebanese pounds (about 14 dollars) per TEU, said the Minister of Works public, Ali Hamiyé.
Drop in imports
The other candidates – notably Chinese – in the running during a previous call for tenders which had not been completed at the end of 2020, when the contract of the current operator, the Anglo-Lebanese consortium Beirut Container, expired. Terminal Company (BCTC), did not submit offers. The economic and financial collapse of Lebanon has got the better of the aspirations of international companies vis-à-vis this public market in which France has invested a lot to promote the candidacy of the Marseilles company.
In October 2021, CMA CGM inaugurated its new headquarters in Beirut, with the stated intention of participating in the economic reconstruction of the country
While the explosion at the port of Beirut in August 2020, which killed 218 people and devastated entire neighborhoods of the city, relatively spared the container terminal and its sixteen cranes, the financial crisis had a strong impact on the port’s yields, which 85% dependent on container activity. The fall in imports due to the collapse of the purchasing power of the Lebanese has led to a drop in port traffic: in 2020, the volume of containers fell for the first time in a decade below the million mark to settle today at 650,000 TEUs. Faced with cash flow problems, due to fluctuations in the Lebanese pound against the dollar, BCTC – whose contract has been renewed on sight since 2020 – is encountering technical and logistical difficulties in managing the terminal.
You have 41.02% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
