Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has officially opened Liverpool2, the £400 million deep-water terminal at the Port of Liverpool.
The facility will complement the existing Royal Seaforth Container Terminal with each terminal having capacity to handle around one million containers per annum. The Port is already the country’s biggest transatlantic port (45 per cent market share) and the only major container port in the north or west of the UK.
Liverpool currently has around eight per cent of the container market in the UK. Owner Peel Ports hopes to push this up to between 15 per cent and 20 per cent.
Fox said: “Liverpool is ideally located to increase our trade with countries west of the UK, including the US, Canada and South America, and this new port opens up even more opportunities with new markets and export destinations for UK businesses.”
Mark Whitworth, CEO of Peel Ports said: “Our investment will help global shippers to transport cargo more efficiently to their end destination with lower costs, congestion and carbon emissions. Liverpool is in the right location, providing state-of-the art facilities and technology, and offers a real competitive advantage with a shorter supply chain and providing an all-water route right to the heart of the UK via the Manchester Ship Canal.”
