The Gdansk port is a major international transport hub and plays a significant role as a key link to the Baltic-Adriatic Core Network Corridor of the TEN-T policy, connecting the Nordic countries with Southern and Eastern Europe. It also hosts the Gdansk Deepwater Container Terminal, which is among the largest container terminals in the Baltic Sea and the only deep-water terminal in the Baltic Sea having direct ocean vessel calls from the Far East. The ongoing extension of Gdansk Deepwater Container Terminal was started with a grant from the Support Fund of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics (NDPTL).
The development process of the Gdansk Deepwater Container Terminal extension was started in 2014. Based on a grant of 150 000 EUR from the NDPTL Support Fund, the project managed to do key preparatory work thus forming the basis for raising a total of 290 million EUR in external financing.
“We are cooperating closely with the Polish Ministry of Transport, who is responsible for management and implementation of different types of funds for infrastructural projects in Poland. They informed us and other potential beneficiaries in Poland about the possibility to apply for co-funding from the NDPTL Support Fund. We found it an attractive and effective source of financing of our planned T2 investment. Eventually, the NDPTL support fund played a crucial part in the investment as it financed the project design, which all the further construction works are based on”, comments director Grzegorz Pawłowski, who was responsible for the NDPTL project in DCT Gdansk.
The construction of the new quay started in January 2015, to be completed during the second half of 2016. After the current investment is completed, the terminal’s annual throughput capacity will double, reaching 3 million TEUs, which will make the DCT terminal the largest in the Baltic Sea area not only in terms of transshipment volumes, but also in terms of projected handling capacity.
“The Gdansk Deepwater Container terminal extension project is an excellent example of how the NDPTL Support Fund can be used as a catalyst for generating funding for large transport infrastructure projects”, says NDPTL Director Oddgeir Danielsen. “Our Fund is targeted to transport and logistics projects that improve the connectedness of the Northern Dimension area. The extension of DCT Gdansk benefits the ND area both in terms of providing a gateway from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean as part of the Baltic-Adriatic Core Network Corridor as well as improving the links to the Far East.”
