China Merchants, Qingdao Port form JV: newspaper

Port operator China Merchants Group and Qingdao Port would be setting up a 6.22 billion yuan (911 million U.S. dollars) joint venture to build and operate a container terminal in Qingdao of East China's Shandong province, China daily reported on Saturday.

Qingdao Port and China Merchants Holdings (International) Ltd, will hold stakes of 50 percent each in the new venture.

The venture called Qingdao Qianwan United Container Terminal Co. Ltd. will develop, operate and manage a total of nine berths with a shoreline of 3,163 m in Qingdao.

It would benefit China's second-largest trade port during worldwide industry restructuring amid the global financial crisis, said Chang Dechuan, chairman of the board of Qingdao Port Group.

The Qingdao Port, the world's seventh largest in terms of trade volume, shipped more than 300 million tons of goods in the year to Dec 13, a year-on-year increase of 5 percent.

Container throughput rose 2.3 percent in the first 11 months to9.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units.

"The new venture is a combination of strength, which will not only increase its ability to deal with the economic crisis but promote the development of Qingdao Port," said Fu Yuning, president of China Merchants Group.

Source: Xinhua