APMT opens terminal in Costa Rica

Built at a cost of $1 billion, the Moín terminal will be used to move refrigerated cargo to Europe and Asia    APM Terminals (APMT) said it has opened a new terminal in Moín, Costa Rica, that will enable products to be shipped to European and Asian markets without transshipment.   
   Morten H. Engelstoft, chief executive officer of APMT, said the terminal inaugurates “a new era in international and intra-regional trade in Central America.” 
   APMT, which is the terminal arm of A.P. Møller – Maersk, said the facility was built at a cost of $1 billion and is on a 40-hectare artificial island. The terminal has a 650-meter-long pier and a container yard with the capacity to hold 26,000 TEUs, including power connection capacity for 3,800 refrigerated containers.
   Costa Rica is the world’s largest exporter of pineapples and third-largest exporter of bananas, said APMT.
   “One of the goals of the Costa Rican government is job creation with a territoriality approach and, with this project that we are inaugurating today, the conditions of competitiveness and economic reactivation are being created for the province of Limón and also for the entire country,” said Carlos Alvarado Quesada, president of the Republic of Costa Rica.
   Moín starts operations with 650 employees. Most were trained under an agreement with the National Institute of Learning.
   APMT said a study, validated by the Central American Academy, says the facility could generate 147,000 indirect jobs in the next decade in Costa Rica.
   APMT will contribute 7.5 percent of its net income to the Board of Port Administration and Economic Development of the Caribbean, approximately $20 million per year.
   The new terminal will have six ship-to-shore container cranes for handling containers and 29 yard cranes, representing an investment of $110 million. APMT said the new facility will be able to continuously perform an average of 180 movements per hour for loading and unloading ships and that this is expected to reduce the time servicing ships from 40 hours at other docks to 15 hours.
   APMT said it expects the new facility will attract many ships transiting the Panama Canal.