Official construction launch of the DCT container terminal at the Port of Gdansk

26.10.2005

25 October 2005 marked the official construction launch of the deepwater container terminal at the Port of Gdansk. The celebration was attended by representatives of all parties involved in the project implementation - among others the Port of Gdansk Authority SA, DCT Gdansk SA, Macquarie Bank, DVB Bank, Hochtief construction consortium as well as the Ministry of Infrastructure and the City of Gdansk.

In their addresses, the speakers: James Sutcliffe - President of DCT Gdansk SA, Andrzej Kasprzak - President of the Board of the Port of Gdansk Authority SA, Witold Gorski - Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Pawel Adamowicz - City Mayor of Gdansk and Henryk Liszka - President of the Board of Hochtief Polska, emphasized the tremendous significance of the terminal for the Port of Gdansk as well as for the entire maritime economy in Poland and in the European Union alike. This investment, to a great extent, changes the image of the Port aiming at its universalization and determines the new position of the Port of Gdansk for many years to come, in line with the tasks imposed on the operation of the port within the North-South Trans-European Transport Network No 6.

Given the outlays on the construction amounting to about EUR 190 million, the deepwater container terminal is the largest development currently under way as far as the Polish maritime sector is concerned. Let us bring to mind that a throughput capacity in phase I of the implementation has been estimated at about 500 thou. TEU, with a designed target capacity of 1 million TEU. The first container carrier to call the new terminal pier is scheduled for May 2007.

It is also worthwhile to add that the construction of the container terminal in the Northern Port combined with the interest developed in the Port of Gdansk on the part of the foreign capital affords a reliable and optimistic assessment of plans that pertain to the development of a logistics and distribution centre on the premises of the Northern Port and, in a longer perspective, passenger or vehicle terminals.