Dubai Port World finalises deal to run Algerian port: report

Dubai Port World (DP World) has agreed on a deal to run the cargo terminal in the Algerian port Djendjen, the port's managing director said Sunday, the Algerian news agency APS reported.

A joint Algerian-Emirati company will be set up in the first quarter of 2009 to run the port, Mohamed Atmane told APS.

The new company will be in charge of the terminal as well as all shipment activities, he added.

The deal will see as many as two million container ships pass through the port each year and will create 1,500 jobs.

Djendjen handled 1,760,000 tonnes of cargo from January to October this year, compared to 1,222,000 tonnes for the same period in 2007, Atmane said.

The port, which opened in 1993, is the most commercially important in Algeria.

The Algerian government has recently decided to pass over management duties of a number of cargo terminals to foreign companies.

DP World currently operates 45 terminals, in addition to 13 new developments in the pipeline, across 29 countries.

Its throughput of containers in the first half of 2008 increased 21 percent to 13.6 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container units).

The company is controlled by the Dubai government. It became one of the world's top container port operators after its 6.9-billion-dollar acquisition of Britain's Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co two years ago.

But the company had to relinquish the US part of that acquisition following fierce congressional opposition to the deal on security grounds despite the support of President George W. Bush