$471mn Loan Talks for Port Said’s New Container Terminal Project Halted

The General Authority for Port Said Ports decided to halt its talks with the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr over a $471 million finance to establish a new container terminal.

The Egyptian government had launched last July a tender to establish the second container terminal in East Tafreaa Port of Port Said city. The terminal was supposed to be established with total estimated investments worth $760 million.

Although a number of banks had given initial approval on the loan, the authority decided to suspend the negotiations due to the incompletion of the terminal tender, a senior banking source near from the talks told Amwal Al Ghad.  This comes after the authority has canceled the tender for the second container terminal in citing non-compliance with technical specifications.

The talks with the banks already started several months ago over $471 million loan (worth more than 3 billion Egyptian pounds) to finance the establishment of the second container terminal in East Tafreaa Port.

The terminal, a part of the Suez Canal Development Axis project,   locates in Port Said city, and is set to be over 100.000 square metres in addition to a 1.200-metre pavement, with total capacity of 10 million containers. The authority targets the completion of the terminal project by 2017, aiming to get optimal benefit from the Suez Canal’s unique location, the waterway handling 12% of global trade, 20% of world’s containers, with shipments worth $1.7 trillion annually.

However, the source expected the resumption of the loan talks as soon as the Egyptian government announces another tender, citing the importance of the new container terminal project, as a part of the Suez Canal Development Axis project.