The Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), one of the largest terminal operating companies in Saudi Arabia, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Shipping of Bangladesh to evaluate investments and provide expertise to the South Asian nation’s expanding port sector.
Under the agreement, RSGT will be responsible for covering planned investment in multiple port-related infrastructure projects for the Bangladeshi maritime sector, as well as providing shared operational expertise.
Bangladesh aims to leverage on its geographic location between South and South-East Asia countries to position itself as a key regional transport hub.
Chittagong, the main port of Bangladesh, handled three million TEU with approximately 3,700 vessel calls in 2018.
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Located on the coastline of the Bay of Bengal, it handles approximately 90% of Bangladesh’s export-import trade, but congestion has proved a major obstacle with a congestion rate of 84.3 hours between January and July 2017.
Gagan Seksaria, Director – Global Investments, RSGT said on the eve of the signing ceremony in Dhaka,“Bangladesh’s remarkable trade-led growth of recent years has meant high utilization of its port and transport infrastructure making it an ideal market for investment in advanced port systems and technology”.
RSGT is the flagship container terminal at the Jeddah Islamic Port located next to LogiPoint export and re-export zone. The terminal, spearheaded by the Saudi Industrial Services group SISCO, is the first privately funded Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) development project in the country with investment of USD $700 million.
RSGT has an area of 750,000 square meters with a quay length of 1,360 meters. It can handle 2.5 million TEUs per year and is equipped with 16 Super Post-Panamax quay cranes with an outreach of 24 rows across and a wide turning basin of 700 meters.
The terminal is the only terminal at Jeddah Port designed to accommodate the next generation of Ultra-Large Container Ships of up to 23,000+ TEU-class capacity.
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