Baltic Container Terminal Gdynia (BCT) intends to keep its number one position in Poland''s container terminals, despite expecting lower volumes as a result of the global slowdown, according to BCT marketing and sales manager Michal Kuzajczyk.
The terminal, owned by ICTSI, handled 494,000 teu in 2007 and is predicting 456,000 teu for 2008. "We have noticed a bit of a slowdown compared to last year but it's more because of some organisational difficulties we suffered in the first half of this year than the general economic situation," said Mr Kuzajczyk. However, he expects lower volumes ahead since the global financial slowdown.
At the time of purchasing BCT, ICTSI set out plans to invest $100m in the Gdynia terminal over 20 years. Forty per cent of this has already been spent on three ship-to-shore container cranes, two of which are post-panamax, ten rubber-tyred gantry cranes, several yard operating machines and a terminal operating system from Tideworks Technology.
