Two foreign companies bid for $1.4 bln Tunisia port licence

Kuwait's Al-Mal Investment Co , and Canada's biggest engineering company SNC-Lavalin Group Inc have bid for Tunisia's $1.4 billion port licence, Tunisian state news agency TAP said on Monday. Al-Mal, a firm controlled by family-owned conglomerate Kharafi Group, is teaming up with Hutchison Port -- the world's largest container terminal operator -- in its offer to buy the deep-water Enfida port licence, TAP added. Tunisian officials have said they expected the winning bidder to be named later in 2009. The seaport in Enfida is located some 130 km (80 miles) south of Tunis. It would have a capacity of 5 million containers per year, officials say.