New areas for development

“Interestingly, whilst the BRIC countries remain viable territory for terminal expansion, there are new areas of interest for both the established operators and the new players willing to take a greater risk for potentially high reward,” said the Reed Smith report. Countries bordering the Black Sea, Central America and Vietnam are consistently being cited as targets for future terminal development.

With the undercutting of state and local government financing in developed regions like the US and mainland Europe, the budget for maritime infrastructure has been severely diminished, creating opportunities for private capital and creative approaches to public-private partnerships to rejuvenate the sector.

JP Morgan Asset Management Infrastructure Investment Group, for example, recently completed the acquisition of Dragados Servicios Portuarios y Logísticos which, as they have pointed out, is the first structured financing deal to close within the ports sector worldwide since 2009.