ZAGREB, September 25, 2018 – A leading Chinese shipping company, COSCO Shipping, wants to include the southern Croatian seaport of Ploče in its business plans for the purpose of establishing regular shipping connections whereby Ploče Port can become an import-export destination as of 2019, the director of COSCO’s regional office Vladimir Lekić said in Sarajevo on Tuesday.
COSCO owns the third largest shipping fleet in the world and currently does business with the Port of Rijeka where it has been present since 2009 as well as Slovenia’s Koper port for freight transport to central European countries.
In 2016, COSCO bought a majority ownership package in the Greek Port of Piraeus which has become the company’s main Mediterranean hub for freight transport.
Smaller ships then transport freight containers to Adriatic ports and COSCO wants to add Ploče to its list of destinations from where it will be able to service the growing demand in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We expect a lot in the coming period on the market in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Lekić told reporters noting that imports and exports to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina have recorded a constant growth in the past five years.
Lekić said that negotiations were underway for Ploče to be established as a freight container terminal. The idea is to establish regular train freight container transport which would revitalise railway connections toward Bosnia and Herzegovina which is now occasionally used for freight trains.
COSCO SHIPPING Lines Co., Ltd, headquartered in Shanghai, is an enterprise specially engaged in international and domestic container shipping and related services. Its fleet comprises 1,118 vessels with a total capacity of 92 million tonnes of freight. To date it has invested in 51 port terminals around the globe.
