What’s new: State-owned China Cosco Shipping Corp. Ltd.’s investment in a new container terminal in Egypt entered the antitrust review phase, a disclosure by China’s market regulator showed.
The shipping giant’s unit Cosco Shipping Ports Ltd. established a joint venture with the European unit of Hong Kong rival Hutchison Ports and a port unit of French shipping power CMA CGM S.A., the antitrust enforcement department of China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) disclosed Sunday in a statement.
The joint venture will co-develop and operate Sokhna New Container Terminal, a project at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal. Hutchison Ports will hold a 50% stake in the joint venture, and the two other partners will each hold 25%, the market regulator said.
The regulator didn’t say when the review will be completed.
The background: Located in the Red Sea region, the Port of Sokhna is about 120 kilometers east of Cairo and adjacent to the Suez Canal Economic Zone, a 460.6 square kilometer area that will be developed into an industrial and technological center and global logistics hub.
Cosco, the world’s third-largest container fleet operator as of the end of 2022, is eyeing global expansion. Cosco already owns a noncontrolling stake in Port Said Suez Canal Terminal.
Its previous investments have included terminals such as the Piraeus Port Terminal in Greece, the Euromax Terminal Rotterdam in the Netherlands and the Cosco-PSA Terminal in Singapore.
As of the end of 2022, the company operated and managed 367 berths at 36 ports worldwide with a combined annual handling capacity of 122 million twenty-foot equivalent container units.
Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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