The Port of Tauranga is considering replicating its successful South Auckland inland port MetroPort in the lower North Island and the Waikato, according to the Dominion Post.
The listed company, which operates New Zealand's biggest export port, is not naming locations but it is understood one site it is eyeing is in the Manawatu. It also has not ruled out the possibility of working with Tainui Group Holdings, the commercial investment of the group, to establish an inland port in the Waikato.
Tainui has been in long-term planning mode for its own inland port and commercial hub on 300 hectares of its land at Ruakura in Hamilton.
However, given the port company is in a dispute in the courts with transport company NZL Group, a director and shareholder of which is TGH chief executive and former port company employee Mike Pohio, the prospects for a partnership look dim at this stage.
Port chief executive Mark Cairns said that in the meantime, the company had its own inland port strategy for the Waikato, the third leg of what the transport industry calls the Golden Triangle with Auckland and Tauranga.
Cairns said if it had not set up MetroPort, its inland port at Penrose in Auckland 11 years ago, "we would still be a little regional port".
MetroPort is a rail and road distribution hub for the port. About 118,000 containers were distributed through it last financial year and there had been a 700 per cent increase in the port's container business because of MetroPort, he said.
Cairns said another reason for wanting to extend its inland port structure was the company's belief there would be only three or four international container ports in New Zealand in future.
The transport industry must be organised to get freight from the heartland to those ports as quickly as possible to meet the mega-container ships that would soon call here, he said. New Zealand currently has 15 ports.
The listed company, which operates New Zealand's biggest export port, is not naming locations but it is understood one site it is eyeing is in the Manawatu. It also has not ruled out the possibility of working with Tainui Group Holdings, the commercial investment of the group, to establish an inland port in the Waikato.
Tainui has been in long-term planning mode for its own inland port and commercial hub on 300 hectares of its land at Ruakura in Hamilton.
However, given the port company is in a dispute in the courts with transport company NZL Group, a director and shareholder of which is TGH chief executive and former port company employee Mike Pohio, the prospects for a partnership look dim at this stage.
Port chief executive Mark Cairns said that in the meantime, the company had its own inland port strategy for the Waikato, the third leg of what the transport industry calls the Golden Triangle with Auckland and Tauranga.
Cairns said if it had not set up MetroPort, its inland port at Penrose in Auckland 11 years ago, "we would still be a little regional port".
MetroPort is a rail and road distribution hub for the port. About 118,000 containers were distributed through it last financial year and there had been a 700 per cent increase in the port's container business because of MetroPort, he said.
Cairns said another reason for wanting to extend its inland port structure was the company's belief there would be only three or four international container ports in New Zealand in future.
The transport industry must be organised to get freight from the heartland to those ports as quickly as possible to meet the mega-container ships that would soon call here, he said. New Zealand currently has 15 ports.