The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Gladstone Road freight terminal is expected to be operational within the next 30 days, Arawak Port Development Company's chief executive said yesterday, adding that freight tariffs would have been 50 per cent higher if shipping facilities had been moved to the Clifton Pier port.

Mike Maura, speaking with Tribune Business following the official opening of the Arawak Cay container port, Mr Maura said the $15.2 million Gladstone Road facility was 95 per cent complete.

"We are just waiting on the tenants to outfit their office space. The Gladstone road fright terminal will be operational in the next 30 days," Mr Muara said.

Regarding the $83 million container port at Arawak Cay, Mr Maura added: "We are 100 per cent operational. We are about 95 per cent complete

"We are finishing a little bit of the fencing right now; we have some additional paving on the far west side of the terminal, and maintenance facilities for our equipment and so forth being erected right now. Within 30 to 45 days those works will be done.

"What is still a work in progress is our administrative offices building. We have to get the Gladstone fight terminal operational, which will allow us to take the freight out of that facility and allow us to convert that facility into an administration building." Mr Maura said that for the most part the response from the shipping companies regarding the port has been fairly positive.

As for the $43 million private placement designed to replace the original line of Royal Bank of Canada credit aken out for the construction phase, Mr Maura said: "I think we are looking at sometime in September. That's debt, that's not equity. That's institutional investors.

"What we did was sell public shares in the company and that was equity, but we have always had that $43 million of bridge loan financing, which is debt. What we are going to do is replace that debt with institutional debt. What we would end up doing at APD is we would no longer be borrowing money from RBC; in that instance we would be borrowing money from institutional investors."