China's COSCO Shipping Pisces, one the world's largest container ships with a capacity of 20,000 TEUs, docked at Abu Dhabi Terminal at Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, signifying that the service capacity of the Abu Dhabi Terminal has once again been upgraded to a higher level.
Pisces has been the largest container ship docking at the terminal since its entry into operation following the upgrading on April 20. The unloading work is expected to take 12 hours.
The CSP Abu Dhabi Terminal, built and operated by China's COSCO Shipping Ports Limited (CSP) and Abu Dhabi Ports, has a designed handling capacity of 2.5 million TEUs.
"Today I docked our country's, also one of the world's largest container ships to our terminal. According to my 40 years of work experience, I can tell that the management at this terminal is world-class," said Xu Dexiang, Captain of Pisces.
The Abu Dhabi Terminal has 800 meters of coastline, seven bridge cranes and 16 rail-mounted gantry cranes. The depth of water is 18 meters.
The entry into operation of the Abu Dhabi Terminal following the upgrading, a key project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, will further increase the capacity of Khalifa Port and make it a competitive shipping hub in the Gulf region.
"I'm feeling very proud that I'm part of this project. So I've seen this terminal start from scratch like it was nothing, from that. Now it was like this as you've seen. So I was aware that this is part of the Belt and Road Project, Initiative of China and it's such a huge project that I've seen including other parts, also of Africa, that I've been into. So I'm just feeling proud about that," said Alex, a staff member at the Terminal.
China is the largest non-oil trading partner of the UAE. In 2017, trade between the two countries increased 15 percent to more than 53 billion U.S. dollars, representing 14.7 percent of the UAE's total foreign trade.
The Belt and Road Initiative, referring to the proposal to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by China in 2013 to improve policy coordination, connectivity of facilities, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and strengthened people-to-people exchanges on a trans-continental scale.
Source:cctvplus
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