On 28 February, Costa Rica welcomed the inauguration of APM Terminals Moín which is expected to enable products to be shipped on transatlantic routes to European and Asian markets without transshipment. The Terminal will also move Costa Rica to number 1 for connectivity, out of 139 countries ranked by the World Economic Forum.
The project represents a total investment of USD 1 billion and is built on a 40-hectare artificial island. The terminal has a 650-meter long pier and a container yard with the capacity to hold 26,000 TEUs, including power connection capacity for 3,800 refrigerated containers.
Refrigeration is essential as Costa Rica is currently the world’s largest exporter of pineapples and third largest exporter of bananas.
The region is expected to attract a very high percentage of the ships that transit through the Panama Canal. The number of shipping routes that reach the Moín Container Terminal is projected to increase by as much as 285%.
The six gantry cranes and the 29-yard cranes represent a USD 110 million investment and will allow the terminal to continuously perform an average of 180 movements per hour for loading and unloading.
Moín starts operations with 650 employees, mostly trained after an agreement with the National Institute of Learning (INA in Spanish). A socioeconomic impact study, validated by the Central American Academy, highlights that the greatest potential lies in the generation of 147 thousand indirect jobs in the following decade nationwide.