Rijeka Gateway terminal will be most modern in EU

Work on Rijeka Gateway container terminal starts (Photo: APM Terminals)

ZAGREB, 15 Sept (Hina) – A ceremony was held at the Rijeka Port on Wednesday to mark the launch of construction work on the Rijeka Gateway Terminal infrastructure and its equipment.

The terminal, which is expected to be the most modern container terminal in this part of Europe, should be put into operation by 2025.

The Rijeka Gateway Terminal will be part of APM Terminals, a global network consisting of 76 terminals, and it will be connected with the Rijeka ring road by a road that will be completed soon.

The terminal will be the first in the region where all container cranes will be remote-controlled.

The Rijeka Gateway company, owned by Maersk Group through APM Terminals and ENNA Naturalis Group through ENNA Logic, has a 50-year concession to operate the future terminal.

Once put into operation, the terminal will work at a capacity of more than 500,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) per year, and in the subsequent phase it is planned to reach a capacity of more than one million containers.

Koen Benders CEO of Rijeka Gateway (Photo credit: Rijeka Gateway/Grad Rijeka)

The terminal is being built as part of the Rijeka Gateway project and is being financed with a World Bank loan. It is 400 metres long and one of its advantages is the depth of the sea at the dock of as much as 20 metres.

Within a period of ten years, the concession-holder should carry out the second phase of construction work and build an additional 290 metres of the landing quay.

Rijeka Gateway will serve as the main point of entry to the country and other markets in this part of Europe.

Rijeka Gateway Management Board chair Koen Benders said he expected more than 300 workers to work at the new terminal, noting that indirect hiring in the region could be much greater.

Rijeka Gateway Management Board member Tomislav Žunić said the terminal would have no carbon footprint and that efforts were being made to ensure maximum safety.

The State Secretary for the Sea and EU Funds, Josip Bilaver, said that work on the D403 road connecting the Rijeka Port and the Rijeka ring road would be completed by the end of the week, and that work was also under way to complete the rail connection between Rijeka and Zagreb and the border with Hungary.

Asked about the project for a double-track railway through Rijeka, Bilaver said that a tender for construction work would be published soon.