The Transport Ministry of Cyprus has announced it has hired consultants in order to manage the privatization of Lanarca port. This government has already attempted to commercialize Larnaca’s port and marina but these attempts always ended in failure.

According to local sources, the government has already met with the advisory team led by Ernst and Young and including Greece’s consultancy firm Salfo and Associates. The consortium will consult with the government in order to prepare the necessary documents to attract investors.

Lanarca port is the second, in magnitude, port of the country and it is located in the southeastern part of Cyprus. Larnaka port is situated approximately 2 kilometer from the town center and is surrounded by residential units. On the north side there are oil product installations and at the south side it borders with Larnaka marina.

It has two quays for the mooring of ships:

• South quay of length 340 m, water depth 11.4 m and equipped with two gantry cranes of 40 tons, 1 crane on rails of 45 tons as well as a ramp of 25m width suitable for ro-ro ships.
• North quay 326 m, water depth 9,3 m and equipped with crane on rails (Luffing Crane) of 35 tons able to serve loads 150 m to the western part of the quay.

It has a multipurpose port having an area of 445.000 square meters and serves all kinds of loads from unpacked (animal fodder, grain, gypsum), conventional (lumber, iron, fertilizers, automobiles) as well as oil products.

Marios Demetriades, The Transport Minister of Cyprus, said:

“It is a project that has been delayed in past years however we are resuming the procedure and want it to be successful as it is important to see at last the project go ahead, as promised. The reason we hired a new consultant group is because we have explored the experience. We included experts on marinas and land development in order to ensure the project’s success. We will first contact potential investors in order to offer them something that is attractive to them. Be certain that like the Limassol port procedure ended up in a success, so we will do everything possible to succeed also with this procedure. The environment is favorable for Cyprus at this moment because it takes financial and political stability in order to find foreign investors".

The government has also recently finalized another tender process for the privatization of the Limassol port operations. As a result the German logistics company EuroGate will lead a consortium handling the container terminal while two consortiums led by Dubai Ports World Ltd will be in charge of bot the maritime services and container terminal.