RIYADH: Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) and Dubai Ports World launched on Thursday the construction works for the first phase of the Southern Container Terminal development project at Jeddah Islamic Port, SPA reported.
The development work will be carried out in four phases, with the project scheduled to be completed by 2024.
It includes improvements that will enable the terminal to serve five ships simultaneously and deal with the largest container ships operating today and in the future, with a load of up to 26,000 TEUs.
This project is part of the new commercial attribution contract that Mawani signed with DP World in December 2019 for a period of thirty years.
The project will contribute to transforming Jeddah into a major international trade and logistics center.
The Jeddah Islamic Port last year became the world’s 37th biggest port, jumping up five places from 2019, according to the Lloyd’s List’s annual report.
The leap has been fuelled by a rise in capacity for container traffic, which saw the hub register 4.767 million containers in 2020, a 6.8 percent rise on the 4.43 million processed in 2019.
The port’s success has been attributed to the upgrade of the operations for the container station following a new commercial attribution contract signed by the Saudi Port Authority.
Valued at SR9 billion, the development increased the carrying capacity of container stations by more than 70 percent.
The list of the 100 biggest global ports included two other Saudi enterprises, with the King Abdullah port ranked number 84, while the King Abdul Aziz port came in at 93, according to the report.
The Kingdom has also increased its global classification in ports network performance, ranking number 16 internationally on the ability of passing goods.
Saudi Arabia has a wild network of ports in the Red Sea and the Arabic Gulf coasts, making it the biggest ports’ network in the region.