Adani gets approval to develop $290 million container terminal port in Myanmar

May17, 2019: The Adani Group has received the approvals to develop a new container terminal in Myanmar. Construction of the $290 million port, to be built from scratch, is expected to begin in September, said a report in Myanmar Times.

According to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), Adani Yangon International Terminal, a company incorporated in Singapore, received approval from the Myanmar Investment Commission on April 26 to develop, operate and maintain the Ahlone International Port Terminal-2 (AIPT-2) under a 50-year Build, Operate and Transfer agreement with the government. AIPT-2 in Ahlone township by the Yangon river will be developed across 50 acres of land owned by Myanmar Economic Corporation, which is currently operating AIPT-1, according to DICA. The company will enjoy income tax incentives for the first three years of operations.

Elaborating that the investment does not breach Australian, US, UN or other international sanctions against Myanmar, the Group said in a statement: “Adani rejects insinuations that this investment is unethical or will compromise human rights… As with all its international investments, the Adani Group has been guided by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and other key international guidelines and will inform the concerned authorities when we firm up the agreements.”

AIPT-2 will be part of Yangon Port cluster on Strand Road in downtown Yangon, which includes Asia World Port Terminal and Myanmar Industrial Port. Container traffic in Myanmar is projected to grow to 20 lakh TEUs from the current 12 lakh TEUs in the next few years and the new port will handle part of the traffic.

In Phase 1, enough capacity will be developed to handle between 1 lakh and 1.5 lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), or twenty-foot containers, when it is completed within the targeted 12 months. Phase 2 is expected to take the port's total capacity to a maximum of 8 lakh TEUs. It will take an additional six months to construct.

This will be Adani's second international port after Australia.

The port terminal will be built under the auspices of the Myanmar Port Authority, the Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communication, said the release.

“The new container port will enable Myanmar to bring further efficiencies to the nation's international trade by enabling cost-effective, high-volume imports and exports," it said. "This will benefit Myanmar's civil society by contributing to the nation's economic development and create more than 1,100 local jobs,” it added.