Freeport studying automation routes, ‘don’t turn us into political football’

The Malta Freeport Terminals Ltd is studying various possibilities of development, including automation, in a bid to remain competitive in view of “the restrictions being mentioned” related to physical space.

The Freeport Terminals, which is run by Turkish shipping giant Yildirim but whose land is government owned, competes with other ports in order to attract investment: the MSC Sveva container ship, which carries over 19,000 containers and the biggest ship of its kind to dock at the Freeport, berthed there for the first time ever.

The company today accused politicians of turning a feud over the freeport’s expansion into a political football. “Instead of focusing on the investments we’re creating and the improvements we’ve made in environmental terms, Freeport has been reduced to political football,” the company said in a statement.

The company said it was closely following political statements made by the Opposition and the government, in order to “evaluate its future and that of the workers, whether directly or indirectly employed”.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Malta Freeport Corporation, Aaron Farrugia, told MaltaToday that there existed “a positive atmosphere” at the Freeport. He confirmed that operators were studying ways how to continue investing in their operations, keeping in mind the physical limitations.

“We know that Malta has its limitations; our geostrategic position was always a potential the Freeport focused on and we are, today, the second biggest port,” Farrugia said.

He added that he didn’t envisage any problems for the corporation or the terminal.

Arguing that he did not want to dive into any political controversies, Farrugia said that the operator was bound to carry out investments every year until the the term expires.

“Studying investment possibilities means that the company has to see what investments it can carry out and which jobs it needs to create,” Farrugia said.

The Nationalist and Labour parties have been at each other’s throat ever since the Prime Minister said he disagreed with a physical expansion of the Freeport, while Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said he was stunned by Joseph Muscat’s declaration.

Muscat said a further expansion of the Freeport footprint would be detrimental to Birzebbuga residents.

The Labour-led council of the locality then voted to condemn Simon Busuttil’s statements in favour of expansion; all PN councillors voted against.

The Labour Party lambasted Busuttil for what it clamed was U-turn on his ‘ODZ is ODZ’ – a Freeport expansion, Labour said, would be on agricultural land.

“The only thing I did was to express surprise that the PM could publicly declare that he does not want one of our best performing and best paying companies to grow further,” Busuttil told MaltaToday. “This sent the wrong message to the Freeport, to stop investing. I never made any reference to any land, whether outside development zones (ODZ) or reclaimed.”