The President of Ecuador Lenín Moreno and DP World Group Chairman and CEO, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem today performed a ground -breaking ceremony to mark the start of construction of the greenfield multi -purpose port project at Posorja, Ecuador, the company said in its press release.
The ceremony fol lows the 50- year concession the company won last year from the Government of Ecuador to build a facility with 750,000 TEU (twenty -foot container equivalent) of capacity to fuel the country’s economic growth and connect it with international markets.
The $ 500 million initial investment (Phase 1) include s the purchase of land, dredging of a new access channel, a 20- kilometre access road and a 400- metre berth equipped to handle containers and other cargo. Total investment will be over $1 billion for the entire project with thousands of jobs during construction, close to 1,000 jobs during operations, along with plans to develop a logistics zone to create a regional trading hub.
While work began in July on nearby access roads, c onstruction of the port, which is located 65 kilometres from the country’s main business city of Guayaquil , is expected to take around 24 months to complete . Additionally, a 1 square kilometre logistics and industrial park, marked as a Special Economic Development Zone, will be developed adjacent to the port.