Venezuela signs deal to develop port

Venezuela signs deal to develop port    Venezuela said it has signed an agreement to have China’s Harbor Engineering Co. (CHEC) develop a new container terminal in Puerto Cabello.
   The government said the terminal would be able to accommodate post-Panamax vessels up to 70,000 deadweight tons, up from the 30,000 dwt ships the port can handle today.
   (A 70,000 dwt ship equates to a capacity of about 5,300 to 5,600 TEUs according to a technical note published by Japan’s National Institute of Land and Infrastructure Development.)
   The deal was signed in Caracas for engineering, procurement and construction of the proposed container terminal by Francisco Garces, Venezuela’s transport minister and Huixian Yu, general manager of CHEC.
   Singapore’s Business Times said the development will cost $600 million.
   Puerto Cabello had been mentioned in the past as one of the ports seeking to become a transshipment hub in the Caribbean, though many ports are able to or plan to be able to handle much larger vessels.
   Meanwhile the firm Business Monitor International said the outlook for the port is poor. In a just released report, it projects a 10.8 percent fall in volume at the port this year after a 58.9 percent contraction in 2009.
   “Puerto Cabello is also expected to see 1.7 percent container handling contraction, in addition to the 2.4 percent fall experienced in 2009,” the firm said.
   This summer a major scandal erupted when more than 2,300 containerloads containing 30,000 tons of food, were discovered rotting in the port.