Albania to get $1.7b port complex

TIRANA, Sep 8 – UK-Swiss group, Zumax, has announced plans to build a US$1.7 billion container port and free zone on Albania’s Adriatic Sea coast, with the aim of turning it into a major container hub for the region.
Zumax managers met last week with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha to discuss the project.
Zumax will build the container port, and a free economic zone area, in stages in the western Albanian port of Vlore in the Adriatic, across the Otranto Straits from Italy’s Bari and Brindisi ports.
The port will be able to process three million TEUs per year.
The company believes Vlore has the capability of becoming a major gateway for the Balkans and the Eastern European region.
They also intend to make the port a container trans-shipment hub for the entire area.
Vlore has a naturally deep harbor, is 16 hours sailing from the main East-West shipping route from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal and 12 hours sailing from secondary traffic passing south of Italy’s Sicily and Greece to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.
Berisha promised Zumax that the government would build a four-lane highway to service the port, as well as adapt exiting road and rail infrastructure to benefit transport.