VERACRUZ, VER.- The mission has been accomplished. CICE Group inaugurated yesterday the first phase of construction of its semi-specialized container and mixed cargo terminal in the northern bay of the port of Veracruz, expanding the installed capacity of this maritime hub .
“It was developed in perhaps record time: just over a year, with the highest quality standards,” said Fernando Con y Ledesma, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grupo CICE, during the formal event that brought together partners, local authorities, and the company’s clients.
This terminal, with a surface area of just over 22 hectares, will have 550 linear meters of dock (of which 350 meters have been built), with a 15-meter draft, two berthing positions, a container yard with a static capacity of at least 13,000 20-foot containers (TEU) and dynamic capacity for handling more than 500,000 TEU ; it will also add an area for refrigerated containers and hazardous cargo, a warehouse of more than eight thousand square meters, a multimodal yard with 1,970 meters of railway track, and a wastewater treatment plant to protect the environment.
The second and final stage of construction is expected to be completed during the second half of this year.
“It’s a Veracruz investment, by Veracruz residents with Mexican capital of seven billion pesos. That’s the investment we have for this terminal (…) this type of infrastructure significantly increases the operational capacity of the port of Veracruz. It will have a capacity of 500,000 containers, but perhaps they will be encouraged to expand it and it will be more,” said the governor of Veracruz, Rocío Nahle, also present at the inauguration.
For his part, Admiral Abraham Eloy Caballero Rosas, general director of the National Port System Administration (Asipona) Veracruz , stated that “with this ambitious project, the Veracruz-based company is strengthening its position as one of the state’s leading companies , quadrupling its current volume of operations and boosting Veracruz’s port activity.”
CICE is a Veracruz-based business group with 34 years of operations. It holds a concession to operate as a maneuvering center in the southern bay of the Port of Veracruz. Its investments have also led it to establish a presence in other ports, such as Tampico, where it has a mixed-cargo terminal , as well as warehouses and logistics parks in Veracruz, Mexico City, and Monterrey. Its service portfolio includes a land freight transportation division with its own units.
The company’s plans include continuing to expand its logistics footprint both in ports and throughout the country.
“Mission accomplished, we’re ready,” said Fernando Con y Ledesema, one of the 116 shareholders that make up Grupo CICE.
The port of Veracruz is positioned as a vital gateway for the entry and exit of goods from the Gulf of Mexico.
By the first quarter of this year, the port of Veracruz had handled a total of seven million 155 thousand 820 tons of merchandise , 10.1% less than the same period last year, according to statistics from the General Coordination of Ports and Merchant Marine (CGPMM) , an office of the Navy .
In terms of containers, the port added 279,937 TEUs from January to March of this year , which also meant an annual decline of 12.2 percent.
During the terminal’s inauguration, a commemorative plaque was presented to ZIM , the world’s ninth largest shipping line, for having been present with the first commercial vessel to dock at the new terminal.
“For us at ZIM, this is a source of pride because we’re constantly growing across our various services. We have the service that connects Veracruz and goes to Brazil, we have the service that goes to the Mediterranean, and we also have the service that runs throughout Central America. So, these are three of the major services for which Mexico as a country is requiring these spaces, these services,” Nalina Sankar, general director of ZIM in Mexico, told T21.
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