Georgia plans $1.2 billion of port improvements

Georgia plans $1.2 billion of port improvements The Georgia Ports Authority said it would spend $1.2 billion on capital improvements at the ports of Savannah and Brunswick.
   The port announced spending plans in conjunction with a visit by a delegation by board members to shipping executives in Hong Kong and Singapore this week.
   “We’re making investments today to accommodate Georgia’s booming trade with Asia tomorrow,” said Steve Green, GPA’s vice chairman, who was accompanying members of the authority’s board on a promotional visit in the Far East. “Asia’s economy continues to fuel world trade and is developing a vibrant domestic market for Georgia-made products.”
   In January, the GPA said upcoming improvements planned in Savannah included:
   ' An additional 100 acres of container storage and 1,000 linear feet
of dock to be completed later this year.
   ' 15 additional rubber-tire gantry cranes to be in service by July.
   ' Four additional super post-Panamax cranes are being fabricated by the contractor and are scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2008.
   In the Port of Brunswick it said expansion of the Anguilla Railyard
the Colonel’s Island overpass are near completion and will dramatically increase auto and grain capacity. A harbor deepening project in Brunswick is scheduled for completion by mid-2007.
   The port said Georgia is the second-largest importer and exporter of goods to and from Asia on the U.S. East Coast.
   It said several new services connecting Savannah and Asia “have firmly cemented Savannah as the No. 1 port on the USEC for trade with Northeast Asia and the No. 2 port for Asian trade on the USEC.”
   The GPA has 24 Asia services. Six of those are trans-Suez services, three of which call Southeast Asia and three of which call India/Middle East. The GPA expects two more Suez services within the next three months, one from India and one from Southeast Asia.
   Last year 1.1 million or 53 percent of the port authority's total 2.1 million TEUs were direct imports and exports to and from China including Hong Kong.
   The GPA will have 19 container cranes by early 2008 when four new cranes come online and at least 25 in use by 2015. The addition of 15 RTGs in 2008 and 12 in 2009 will yield a total of 58.