CMA CGM wins concession of
Beirut Port container terminal

Ten year contract, 400 new jobs, $33 million investment

CMA Terminals, a fully-owned subsidiary of the CMA CGM Group, has won a bid to manage, operate and maintain the container terminal of the Port of Beirut (PoB) for a ten-year period starting in March 2022. It has a target to handle 1.4 million TEUs (Twenty-foot equivalent units).

CMA CGM will earn $11 and LL285,000 for each TEU. The number of containers handled at PoB dropped from 1.3 million TEUs in 2018 to nearly 773,000 in 2020.

Gulftainer was the competing bidder. Beirut Container Terminal Consortium (BCTC) was managing the terminal for the past 17 years.

The CMA CGM Group currently handles almost 55 percent of the container terminal’s volume. It has nine weekly calls and transshipment operations at PoB.

The company will invest $33 million in the container terminal, of which $19 million during the first two years, for a complete infrastructure upgrade, refurbishment, replacement, and acquisition of new port equipment. It will also be engaged in the construction of a new technical facility for maintenance and spare parts storage, and in a digital transformation of the terminal.

Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman of the 43-year old international company said in a statement: “Faithful to our commitments to Lebanon, we will be launching shortly an ambitious investment plan that will transform Beirut Port’s container terminal into a state-of-the-art facility that meets the best international standards. It will revitalize the economic exchanges between Lebanon and the rest of the world.”

In 2021, CMA CGM fully acquired Port of Tripoli’s container terminal. Its other local endeavors include establishing its Levant regional office in Beirut, opening a Digital Hub and creating a Shared Services Center. It has also supported the Lebanese agriculture sector especially its expansion on global markets, besides other industrial investments. This has led to creating around 800 jobs in Lebanon over the past two years to a total of nearly 1,000. The company expects adding 400 new jobs in the next 12 months.

Winning the contract to manage, operate and maintain the Port of Beirut’s container terminal is part of the CMA CGM Group’s strategy of developing its terminal business while supporting the growth and efficiency of its shipping lines, consolidating its end-to-end service offering and establishing greater control over the logistics chain. The aim is to offer its customers higher-quality, integrated, digital and more environmentally-friendly services in a context that requires a comprehensive approach to the supply chain. The Group is currently present in 52 port terminals across 33 countries via its subsidiaries CMA Terminals and Terminal Link (joint venture).

CMA CGM Group, a global leader in shipping and logistics, serves more than 420 ports around the world on five continents. Backed by a fleet of 545 vessels, the Group transported nearly 21 million TEUs in 2020. The CMA CGM Group is continually innovating to offer its customers a complete and increasingly efficient range of new shipping, land, air and logistics solutions. This is achieved through its air freight division CMA CGM AIR CARGO and its subsidiary CEVA Logistics, a world leader in logistics, which transports 400,000 tons of air freight and 2.8 million tons of land freight each year. The company is present in 160 countries through its network of more than 400 offices and 750 warehouses. It employs more than 110,000 people worldwide including 2,400 in Marseilles at its head office.