A joint venture made up of VINCI Construction subsidiaries VINCI Construction Grands Projets and EMCC and the Belgian dredging company Jan de Nul has won the US$147 million contract to extend the port of Kingston, Jamaica.

Leading worldwide shipping group CMA CGM, which has held the concession for the port of Kingston since 1 July 2016, selected the joint venture to carry out the project.

The contract covers, first and foremost, the refurbishment, reinforcement and upgrade to seismic standards of 1,200 metres of quays. The joint venture will also carry out dredging work in the access channel. The projects will be completed in 25 months. The operation will increase the alongside depth of the quays to enable them to handle container ships of larger capacity.

Coming a few days after the opening of the expanded Panama Canal, which accommodates the world's largest container ships, the contract to extend and refurbish the port of Kingston is a strategic move for the region. The port of Kingston is ideally located near the Panama Canal at the crossroads between the North/South and East/West sea lanes and will thus become one of the three main container terminals in the Caribbean.

CMA CGM will have the benefit of VINCI's experience in Jamaica, where the VINCI Group has operated for nearly three decades and where VINCI Construction Grands Projets notably built several sewer and water treatment structures over the past 15 years.