According to sources, APM Terminals is currently seeking to invest in more Turkish shipping ports to take advantage of container volume growth at the country's Mediterranean and Black Sea ports.

Turkey handled about 8 million TEUs at its ports in 2013, and the country has become closer to reach its capacity, which is approximately 12 million TEUs per year. In Turkey, container handling is growing twice as fast as the country's gross domestic product.

Mogans Wolf Larsen, managing director of APM Terminals Turkey, said in an interview with Bloomberg:

We are definitely interested to have a port around Istanbul, in the Marmara region. We can also look at the Mediterranean coast between Mersin and Iskenderun.

APM Terminals is currently developing a new container port on Turkey's Aliaga peninsula, which is scheduled to be operational by 2015. APM's Aliaga container port is a joint venture with Petkim Petrokimya Holding AS, a petrochemicals maker. The total project investment is estimated at US$450 million. The new facilities will have a total capacity of 1.3 million TEUs per year.

In early April this year we reported that APM Terminals signed a memorandum of understanding with China Shipping to pave the way for more collaboration and joint ventures.

APM Terminals is an international container terminal operating company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of the world's largest port and terminal operators as well as providing cargo support and container Inland Services, and is the largest port and terminal operating company in terms of overall geographic scope operating a Global Terminal Network with interests in 64 operating port and terminal facilities in 39 countries on five continents.