YANBU, 7 December 2007 — Two contracts worth SR71 million for the upgrade of services at King Fahd Industrial Port (KFIP) were signed at the port headquarters on Sunday.

The first contract worth SR53 million for the supply of two huge towboats was signed by Khaled Ahmed Abdul Rahman Bubshait, chairman of the Saudi Ports Authority (SPA) and Hani Al-Bakri, representative of the Red Sea Company for Oceanic Services.

The 4,000 HP tugboats are to be built in a dry dock in Malaysia and delivered to the Yanbu port in three years.

The second contract worth SR18 million was signed with the Radeef for Safety Devices Establishment for the supply of several safety devices.

Following the signing ceremony, Bubshait told Arab News that SPA intended to construct a new industrial port on the Red Sea coast in the absence of any other industrial port in the region.

“While the King Fahd Industrial Port in Yanbu is undergoing huge expansion works, the SPA is making the feasibility study of a second industrial port on the Red Sea coast,” Bubshait said.

The chairman also said that SPA was currently studying the viability of converting SPA into a corporation.

“The conversion will make the authority an independent corporation that operates on a commercial basis which would enable it to implement the standards to cope with the international developments in ports and maritime industry,” Bubshait said. However a systematic and studied conversion needs a lot of time, he added.

The SPA chairman also said his organization undertook several administrative reforms related to its organizational restructuring. The employees in the SPA are subject to all the civil service regulations, he said.

Speaking on SPA’s efforts for the construction of the land bridge connecting the eastern and northern regions with the western region in collaboration with the Saudi Railway Organization, Bubshait said “basically the ports are the beginning and ending points of the railway lines. Therefore efforts are under way to upgrade the Jeddah Islamic Port and Dammam Port to coincide with the construction of the new railway lines. Contracts have been signed to construct more wharfs in the Jeddah port as part of the first phase of the development of the Jeddah port.”

The tenders for the construction of more container terminals at the Dammam Port would be invited shortly, he added.

He also said the dispute over the price of the land acquired for the expansion of the Yanbu Commercial Port would be settled soon.

Bubshait observed that while private companies operate all the port and sea facilities, SPA remains a supervisory body.

The official also said that Saudi and Egyptian officials were studying the signing of an agreement for the exchange of expertise and explore investment opportunities in the ports sector in the two countries.

“The development plans of the ports include increasing their capacity by constructing container stations, sea breakers and wharfs,” he said.

The Jeddah port handled 65 percent of the goods imported to the Kingdom. Three million containers were handled at the port. After the completion of the expansion works, the Jeddah port’s capacity would increase to 5 million, he said.