CMA CGM signs logistics deal in Cuba

French ocean carrier will develop and operate a logistics platform in the port of Mariel with the Cuban logistics company AUSA.    The CMA CGM Group has signed an agreement to develop and operate a logistics “platform” in the port of Mariel, Cuba in cooperation with the Cuban logistics company AUSA.
   The French carrier said Rodolphe Saadé, CMA CGM Group’s vice-chairman, signed the agreement in Cuba in the presence of French President François Hollande and Matthias Fekl, the French Minister of State for Foreign Trade, on Monday, May 11.
​   CMA CGM LOG, the CMA CGM Group’s subsidiary dedicated to logistics, will contribute to the operations which will be part of the Mariel ZEDM or Zona Especial de Desarrollo Mariel, Cuba Special Economic Zone project. ZEDM is a strategic 11,367-acre logistics and industrial project area for Cuba.
   CMA CGM LOG will operate a 42-acre logistics platform with AUSA that will include 12,000 square meters of warehouse space and 5,000 cubic meters of refrigerated warehousing space. It will be in charge of goods unbundling and distribution on the island, exports consolidation, warehousing imports and exports, and distribution and storage of empty and full containers.
   CMA CGM said it has been present in Cuba since 2000.
   Mathieu Friedberg, vice president freight forwarding and logistics activities at CMA CGM, said the deal is “a new step in the acceleration of CMA CGM LOG’s international development, which recently announced the acquisition of LCL Logistix, one of India’s logistics leading companies.”