The global crisis certainly focused the minds of the operators in terms of future concession bids, and the focus is largely on the obvious targets, including South America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
“In all of those regions, growing middle class populations are the new consumers with new buying power, so shipping will follow quickly,” says Tom Boyd, APM Terminals’ communications director. “We are really focusing on Latin America where all those ports need upgrading. But we are also looking at Eastern Europe, where we have just opened in Georgia (Poti) on the Black Sea.