Svitzer Bringing Its Tugs to Guangzhou Port
Copenhagen-based towage and salvage company Svitzer has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chinese Guangzhou Port Group to form a joint venture providing towage and related marine services for the port.
The joint venture would provide towage and related marine services within the Guangzhou port with three tugs ranging from 5200HP to 6800HP.
“Combining the strengths of Guangzhou Port and Svitzer is an important first step for further cooperation in China and abroad. Entering the world’s 5th largest port would be essential in Svitzer’s growth journey in Asia,” says Alan Bradley, Regional Managing Director of Asia.
“Signing an MOU with the intention of forming a joint venture is an important step towards providing advanced towage solutions at Guangzhou Port. With our increasing business development focus on the large and fast growing towage markets like Asia, it is clearly a step in the right direction towards our strategic objective of profitable growth,” Chief Commercial Officer, Kasper Friis Nilaus, said.
Svitzer covers some 40 countries with a fleet of more than 400 vessels.
The company was recently faced with a number of strikes held at various Australian ports due to its proposition of a single Enterprise Agreement (EA) for the next four years. The unions eventually agreed to Svitzer’s proposal, and the new agreement was sent for approval with the Fair Work Commission on January 22.
The strikes were held at Australia’s Eastern and Western ports of Sydney, Botany, Geelong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Fremantle and Kwinana, and prevented all coal carriers, fuel carriers, car importers and bulk container vessels from entering and leaving port.
