APM Terminals, Port of Rotterdam Authority sign cooperation pact

APM Terminals, Port of Rotterdam Authority sign cooperation pact    The Hague, Netherlands-based APM Terminals, part of Denmark’s A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, and the Port of Rotterdam Authority, overseers of Europe’s largest container complex, have signed a five-year agreement to work together on box terminal research and development.
   The main objectives of the partnership are to:
   ' Support environmentally proactive terminal planning and operating procedures with sustainable development.
   ' Improve productivity and efficiency of terminal operations.
   ' Optimize land use.
   ' Help to increase public awareness of the economic role container facilities play.
   The agreement will see five projects per year at the current APM Terminals Rotterdam facility, which surpassed 2.6 million TEUs in 2007, and the future APM Terminals Maasvlakte II facility, construction of which is scheduled to commence later this year.
   “Globalization and economic growth generate a structural increase in goods transport. Our aim as a port authority is to make sure that this is facilitated within our port by increasing the productivity of existing terminals, by making new ones very efficient, and at the same time increase the sustainability of logistics. Because economic growth and sustainability must go hand in hand,” said Hans Smits, chief executive officer of the Rotterdam Port Authority.