Freemantle Port, the largest general cargo port in Australia is to be sold for around US$5 billion in a bid to help pay-off some of the country’s debt, which is an additional strategy to its previous efforts to sell $1 to 2 billion in assets to the market to put Australia back in the black, according to the Australian Financial Review.
In a previous article by PTI, Australia had sold the remaining 10% share of one of its container terminals to global terminal operator ICTSI for more than $5 million.
Mike Nahan, Treasurer for Western Australian, said: “The way to reduce our debt levels is through recycling assets and selling assets more aggressively than we would otherwise do.
“It took us some time. In Treasury we had no one who has ever been involved in asset sales. We had to build up the team and get on advisers and build up the capacity to do it. It's taken us six months to do that. We have identified some assets for sale.”
Container terminal operator ICTSI has also recently won a bid construct a $500 million container terminal in Melbourne, Australia.
Australia has acted to ban Great Barrier Reef dumping, which had previously been an issue for around 100 years before the ban came into effect.
