French Port Le Havre to open office in India

Mumbai, Nov 27 (UNI) The Port of Le Havre, the largest French port for external trade, will soon set up its office in the city, the Port's Executive Director Jean-Marc Lacave said here today.

''We are in the process of establishing an office in India and hope it will start functioning in the near future,'' Lacave told reporters.

He was addressing the media along with Port of Le Havre Chairman of the board Mr Jean-Pierre Lecomte and Port Users Association Chairman M Christian Leroux.

The Port authorities are currently on a visit to India to study the functioning of the Indian ports and also promote business with the country's martime Industry.

Stating that the Port now offers easier access for Indian shipments to the European Union, especially after the introduction of the new port facility dedicated to container traffic at terminal one in April 2006, Mr Lacomte said that the Port has seen a distinctive rise in traffic volume from India such as oil tankers, which has tripled with a total of 4,40,000 tons and increased by approximately 8 percent to 2,00 000 tons of container trade.

In mid 2006, the opening of new infrastructure such as Port 2000 has increased the capacity for container trade at Le Port du Havre and contributed to setting up direct shipping lines between Le Havre and Nhava Sheva, Mundra and Chennai ports.

This development enables better transit time to and from Europe and will add value to the existing transhipping lines to India, he added.

With a global traffic of 75 million tons, Le Havre is the 5th largest port in Europe in tons and the French leading port for foreign trade and for containerised traffic.

The port controls more than 60 percent of the French market with 21.1 Mt or 2.13 MTeus (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit - containers).

UNI