Maersk, Enna Logic, Rijeka Gateway to invest over 480 mln euro in Croatia

“Rijeka Gateway will be a modern, state-of-the-art gateway terminal. It will be operated with remote-controlled electrical container handling equipment, in line with our ambitious decarbonisation roadmap and terminal of the future concept,” Rijeka Gateway CEO Koen Benders said in a press release issued by APM Terminals, part of the Maersk group, on Thursday.

Benders made the statement on March 6, during a visit of the prime minister of Denmark Mette Frederikse and his Croatian counterpart Andrej Plenkovic to the construction site of the container terminal in the northern Croatian Adriatic port of Rijeka.

Maersk, Enna Logic and Rijeka Gateway expect to create over 1,100 direct jobs in Croatia, of which more than 300 in the new terminal, whilst indirect employment in the region could be a multitude of that number, CFO of Rijeka Gateway, Tomislav Zunic, said.

Terminal opening is planned for the second quarter of 2025. The quay of the future terminal is already built and the yard needs to be constructed.

In November 2021, APM Terminals and Enna Logic signed a 50-year concession agreement to design, construct and operate the Rijeka Gateway container terminal.

APM Terminals owns 51% of the project company and Enna Logic owns the remaining 49%.

Once completed, the terminal will have a 680 metre long berth, an annual processing capacity of 1,055,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and will be able to serve vessels up to 24,000 TEUs.

“It is an investment worth 500 million euro which will open 1,300 new jobs in the next years, and which will be complemented with the road D403 from the coast to the Rijeka bypass, and the constriction of the railway from Rijeka to the Hungarian border,” Plenkovic told a weekly cabinet meeting on Thursday as seen in a video recording published by public television HRT.

The shares of the Croatia's largest seaport operator, Luka Rijeka [ZSE:LKRI], which manages several other terminals at the Rijeka port, traded 4.17% lower on Friday morning on the Zagreb bourse, following a rally in the previous two sessions.

($ = 0.945 euro)