Archive

BY MARK ROWE
FRENCH shipping line Delmas has begun a direct link between Singapore and East Africa to take advantage of growing container trade volumes with Asia. The East Africa-Far East service provides an 11-day connection between Singapore and Mombasa, compared with other indirect services that take up to 20 days.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s ambitious Galileo satellite navigation project has been given a vote of approval by the European Parliament but the assembly also crucially said that there should be no intimate private sector involvement in the Pounds 2.5 billion programme.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE HONG Kong company Modern Terminals Ltd (MTL) has announced that it plans to invest a further HK$1 billion, (Pounds 94 million), to HK$2 billion in its port projects in China over the next three years. These include the container terminal operator’s ongoing investments in the Kaifeng and Shekou container terminals in Western Shenzhen across the mainland border and also operates five container berths at Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung Container Port.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission today (Tuesday) formally proposed that the European Union ratifies the Rotterdam Convention procedure regulating the shipping of hazardous chemicals in international trade, and at the same time proposed that the EU goes further by covering a wider range of chemicals than contained in the Convention.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared a significant legal obstacle preventing the French government going ahead with plans to spend national state aid on subsidising start-up short sea shipping runs.

Brussels has ordered that such grants would be legal under European Union state aid regulations.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH African National Ports Authority chief executive Siyabonga Gama has announced that the re-release of tenders for the building of a ship repair facility at the Richard’s Bay port, in Kwazulu-Natal, would be issued early in March.

Its construction is expected to cost between Rand 2 billion, (Pounds 122 million), and 5 billion, (307 million), directly creating 400 new jobs with an estimated 1,200 indirect jobs being generated in varied fields such as steel, electrical engineering and shop fitting.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA is planning to open an international airport serving Buddhist pilgrims visiting the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, in the undeveloped state of Bihar, which would receive flights from around the world, unrestricted by bilateral agreements.

New Delhi and the Bihar state government have identified land for the development, between the religious site of Buddha Gaya and nearby Gaya town.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to provide Euro 115 million in grants, (Pounds 71 million), which could be tapped to support investment into new intermodal freight projects enabling road transport operators to transfer cargo to rail and shipping services.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s transport committee has amended the proposed directive on speed limiters for lorries and buses, so that tighter speed restrictions are imposed on vehicles carrying hazardous goods. MEP’s also voted for Member States to have until January 2004 to write the directive into national law, rather than the January 2003 deadline proposed by the European Commission.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission today (Wednesday) announced new plans for the distribution and sale of cars in the EU that will loosen the ties between manufacturers and dealers allowing greater competition and lower prices for consumers.

The new rules, which cannot be blocked by member governments or the European Parliament because the Commission has sole responsibility for competition policy, will come into force in October after a consultation process with the industry.…