Syria signs 30-year deal with French shipping giant to operate Latakia Port

CMA CGM plans to invest €230 million over the next several years to modernize the port situated in one of the cities where government forces have been conducting sectarian massacres of civilians  

News Desk  -  The Cradle

Syria's de facto authorities signed a 30-year contract with French shipping giant CMA CGM on 1 May to develop and run the port of Latakia, Syria’s main maritime gateway.

Mazen Alloush, Director of Public Relations at Syria's General Authority for Land and Sea Ports, told SANA that the French company “will begin pumping initial investments worth €30 million [around $32.1 million] during the first year” for maintaining and modernizing the port's equipment.

Over the next three years, CMA CGM is expected to invest an additional €200 million (around $226 million) in constructing a new pier built to “global standards.”

Regarding the port's operational revenues, Latakia's port director Ahmed Mustafa said that “they will be divided between CMA CGM and the Syrian state, with 60 percent for the Syrian state and 40 percent for (the company),” adding that the percentage is subject to change with “the increase in the number of containers entering the country.”

“Within the framework of this contract, we committed to modernizing the port, expanding it, and deepening its basin, so that it can accommodate larger ships and handle all the expected quantities of goods anticipated to arrive in Syria in the coming years,” Joseph Dakak, CMA CGM's regional director, told AFP at the signing ceremony.

The contract was signed in the presence of self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus.

Since 2009, CMA CGM has managed Latakia Port, taking responsibility for the container terminal operations. The contract has been renewed multiple times, with the latest renewal occurring in October 2024 for an extra 30 years under the former government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Since early March, the coastal city of Latakia has been one of the locations of ongoing massacres of thousands of Alawite civilians committed by Syrian government forces.

The de facto officials, many of them foreign extremists, have also been kidnapping young Alawite women and taking them as sex slaves in Idlib – the former stronghold of President Sharaa, formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Syria founder Abu Mohammad al-Julani.