A.P.Møller-Mærsk takes over the running of two port terminals in the Gulf state Bahrain, managing director Jørgen Madsen of APM Terminals in Bahrain said.
Bahrain’s parliament decided Tuesday that the port operations are to be privatized and transferred to APM Terminals Bahrain.
"On Tuesday the Bahrain parliament voted on the issue whether the running of the port should be privatized and transferred to APM Terminals, and with 20 votes for and 15 against it was decided that we shall be in charge of the running of the two ports in Bahrain," Jørgen Madsen told Børsen’s News Service.
To begin with APM Terminals ran into unexpected problems with the parliamentary approval, when a vote on the agreement ended without result, as the vote ended with 17 votes for and 17 votes against in the parliament.
Jørgen Madsen said that last week’s voting result was due to problems with the electronic voting in the parliament and that the voting was therefore repeated this week.
"We are pleased with the result, but we never doubted that the parliament would ratify the agreement," Jørgen Madsen told BNS.