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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ichy Smith who wrote (10835)	11/1/2006 10:47:50 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 37570

Dubai firm considers investing in Halifax ports Stymied by U.S. security concerns, company may shift focus to Nova Scotia PETER MOREIRA theglobeandmail.com From Wednesday's Globe and Mail HALIFAX — Six months after it scrapped a plan to buy six port facilities in the U.S., Dubai Ports World is considering whether to establish an operation in Halifax, says a Canadian senator who recently met with the global ports operator. Nova Scotia Senator Wilfred Moore recently visited Dubai as a member of the standing committee on defence and security and held two meetings with DP World executives, who expressed interest in investing in Canada's third-largest port. While there is no indication of how the company would enter the Halifax market, one obvious takeover target would be Halifax-based Halterm Income Fund, which operates one of two container terminals on Halifax Harbour. "They mentioned that they would like to come to Halifax, and I thought that was positive news so I tried to encourage it," Mr. Moore said in a phone interview yesterday. Though small by international standards, the Port of Halifax would give DP World access to a stable North Atlantic market with rising traffic, as well as fewer headaches than its last big investment. Related to this article Latest Comments #3. Do you remember K-Mart canada? They may have an opinion... Who said we can't compete with Wal-Mart. If any old lobbyist... Hope the federal government will not oppose such an investment... Like as if we are immune from Islamists who hate the West. We... 4 reader comments \| Join the conversation Follow this writer Add PETER MOREIRA to my e-mail alerts The Dubai company in February agreed to pay £3.9-billion ($8.3-billion) for London-based port operator Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., but troubles arose because P&O owned six U.S. ports. U.S. politicians loudly opposed a United Arab Emirates company owning American ports due to security concerns, and DP World closed the P&O deal only after it agreed to divest the U.S. operations. Mr. Moore -- who said he wasn't told whether DP World was interested in building or buying in Halifax -- said the concerns were unfounded because Dubai and its ports are security-conscious and regularly host U.S. warships. DP World recently expanded its operations in Vancouver, and manages terminals in Long Beach, Calif. It is also building a port in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Moore said DP World could develop a "four-cornered" strategy in North America with an operation in Halifax. Spokespeople for DP World, Halterm and the Halifax Port Authority were unavailable for comment on Tuesday. Halterm operates a terminal in the south end of Halifax, two or three kilometres from the mouth of Halifax Harbour. Any decision on whether to sell out to DP World would ultimately rest with activist investor and Clarke Inc. president George Armoyan, who owns about 19 per cent of Halterm. A spokesman said Mr. Armoyan is travelling in Egypt and could not be reached for comment. Halterm shares have risen steadily since bottoming out at $3 in early 2003, and on Tuesday closed up 2.7 per cent at $15.39, giving the income trust a market capitalization of about $124-million. Halifax's other terminal is the Fairview Cove Container Terminal, which is owned by another global port company, Ceres Terminals Inc. of Weehawken, N.J. A person familiar with the company said it has no intention of selling the Fairview Cove facility, which is farther up the harbour and is accessed by sailing under two suspension bridges. With an ice-free harbour deep enough to accommodate the latest generation of super-container vessels, Halifax has been gaining traffic recently from the most unlikely of places -- Asia. As West Coast ports and the Panama Canal suffer congestions, Halifax has been attracting container traffic from South and Southeast Asia via the Suez Canal. The Halifax Port Authority -- a federal body that oversees the port -- recently hired Mumbai-based Jeena & Co., one of India's largest logistics companies, to promote the port in India. The port's container traffic has risen in each of the past six years, and in 2005 reached 550,462 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs. According to data from the Association of American Port Authorities, it has the third-highest container traffic in Canada, after Vancouver, with 1.77 million TEUs annually, and Montreal, with 1.25 million TEUs.