Sultan bin Salim al-Habsi, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Planning and Chairman of Sohar Industrial Port stressed that Sohar Port is ready to receive all business and meet the needs of the large growth of the volume of cargo and marine activity. He added that almost 80% of the first stage of the free zone has been already leased.
Investments and jobs
So far, Sohar Port and the free zone project have received more than $15 billion worth investments, making it one of the fastest growing projects in the world. As for the exact number of direct jobs created by the companies operating in the port al-Habsi said that these companies created about 8000 direct jobs. He added that the Omanization rate at these companies range between 35% to more than 75% in some cases.
Containers
According to al-Habsi, Sohar Industrial Port is ready to receive all businesses transferred from Port Sultan Qaboos. In 2013, the Port managed to receive more than 200,000 containers. The current capacity is 800,000 containers. The container terminal operator is currently investing more than $100 million to prepare an integrated container terminal with a capacity of 1.5 million containers. The terminal is expected to be operational at the first half of 2014.
[mappress]
Port of Rotterdam, February 4, 2014