APM Terminals selected by Shanghai Municipal Government to join Yangshan container terminal cosortium

APM Terminals, the terminal operating unit of Denmark’s A.P. Moller – Maersk Group has been selected by the Shanghai Municipal Government to take up a 32% share in the Yangshan Island Phase-2 container terminal. Other consortium members will include Hutchison Port Holdings with 32%, Shanghai International Port Group with 16%, Cosco Pacific with 10% and China Shipping Group with 10%.

As the only non-Chinese or foreign investor in the Yangshan project, APM Terminals deepens its position as a leading terminal operator in the Port of Shanghai, estimated to become the world’s largest container port by 2007.

Yangshan Phase-1 opened to much fanfare just nine days ago and today’s contract signing puts in place the development and operating consortia scheduled to bring Phase-2 on line just 12 months later in December 2006. Phase-2 will have four berths across 1,400 meters of quay and a land area of 640,000 square meters.

Considered one of the most ambitious projects to-date in China, the island terminal will be served by a 32 kilometer, six lane bridge, connecting it to the bustling mainland city of Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Speaking at the contract signing ceremony in Shanghai today, A.P. Moller – Maersk Partner Tommy Thomsen praised the fact that “it has been 1,271 days since the first pile was driven. In this short time 7,000 workers have sunk 5,245 piles, blasted and moved 8.5 million cubic meters of rock, dredged and filled 27.25 million cubic meters of sand, poured countless tons of concrete and at the same time, built what we believe to be the longest bridge in the world!”

“Indeed a remarkable feat of engineering! This is a fine example of the grand vision of the Shanghai city government,” Thomsen said.

Maersk Sealand, also a part of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group and the leading global container shipping line, has already begun calling Yangshan Island Phase-1 with its Europe-to-Asia services and is the largest foreign shipping line calling the port of Shanghai, carrying more than one million twenty foot equivalent (TEU) container units to and from the port in 2005.

Mr. Thomsen summed up A.P. Moller – Maersk’s partnership with the City of Shanghai and said, “Mr. Mayor, we are delighted to have been selected as a leading investor and operator of Yangshan Phase-2 and we are committed to working alongside of you in making this historic venture a success.”