A Catalan company wins the contract to manage Singapore’s new cruise ship terminal

Barcelona (ACN). - The Catalan company ‘Creuers del Port de Barcelona’ has won a contract to manage the new Singapore cruise ship terminal. The current authority of five out of the seven cruise ship terminals at the Port of Barcelona will lead the development of this new Southeast Asian port. The Singapore terminal will have the capacity to handle the biggest ships in the region measuring as long as 300 metres and with a capacity of 6,000 passengers each.

‘Creuers del Port de Barcelona’ has won the international tender and aims to make the new Singapore terminal a “regional hub for cruises”. The Catalans have won the concession for 10 years, expandable to five more if required. The company will have to manage the terminal together with the local enterprise SATS in what will become its first international investment.

‘Creuers del Port de Barcelona’ is 20% owned by the Port of the Catalan capital. It also manages two terminals in Malaga on the Costa del Sol. The objective of ‘Creuers del Port de Barcelona’ is to “promote the cruise ship industry” in Singapore and “consolidate” the city as the “main regional hub for cruise ships and the first port of call in Southeast Asia”, said the director of the company Carles Domingo.

Up to one million passengers passed through the Port of Singapore in 2010, and experts consider the area to have “an important potential for growth” in the cruise ship sector. In Catalonia, the company that was awarded the contract to manage the port has made Barcelona the first port for cruise ships in Europe and the Mediterranean, and the fourth port of call in the world. In 2011, the Port of Barcelona received more than 2.6 million passengers.