Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA) has signed an agreement to acquire a 50.01% stake in the terminal Piattaforma Logistica Trieste (PLT) in the Italian seaport of Trieste.

It marks the third investment of HHLA in a port other than Hamburg, after Odessa in Ukraine and Tallinn in Estonia.

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The terminal is located inside the Free Port of Trieste and is spread over an area of 28ha.

It has its own rail connection. Metrans, the HHLA rail subsidiary, already links the Port of Trieste with the European intermodal network.

General cargo transports and logistic services are handled in the northern part of the terminal facilities.

The southern part of the terminal accommodates the new centre, which is expected to begin operations in the first quarter of next year. It will manage the container and roll-on / roll-off (RoRo) traffic.

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The PLT terminal will be able to accommodate 300,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in standard containers, 90,000 RoRo units and 700,000t of general cargo.

Furthermore, the terminal can be expanded using the extra adjacent areas in the future.

HHLA Executive Board chairwoman Angela Titzrath said: “The Adriatic region has been developing very dynamically in the past few years. As the northernmost port in the Mediterranean, Trieste is the southern gateway to Central and Eastern Europe.

“The investment is a strategic expansion to our existing port and intermodal network. The terminal gives us the opportunity to actively participate in and help shape new and changing cargo flows and underline our ambitions to grow internationally.

“At the same time, we will continue to enhance our terminals in Hamburg by investing in facilities and technology. We are a Hamburg company, at home in Europe and operating globally.”

The financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed. The completion of the deal is subject to other customary conditions and is scheduled for January next year.

In November last year, HHLA received three new container gantry cranes for its Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) in Hamburg, Germany.

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