Pan Mediterranean wins Israeli port bid

Pan Mediterranean, a subsidiary of the Chinese national ports company China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), has won the pre-qualification stage tender to build one of the new Israeli ports planned for either Ashdod or Haifa, according to the Israeli on-line business news agency ‘Globes’.

The company now has a choice as to which of two potential new ports it will build, with the ‘runner-up’ bidder (as yet unnamed) having the option to construct the other.  Globes stated that China made a last-minute bid this April, competing against Germany’s Eurogate, Terminal Investment, from the Netherlands, and Philippines-based International Container Terminal Services.

As revealed in CM in July last year (2013), the Israeli government’s announced plans to reform the country’s ports in defiance of threats of action to prevent the development of competing private ports by the country’s powerful labour unions. This included the development of two new private ports.