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CMA CGM, Saudi Arabia ink Jeddah port deal

CMA CGM and Saudi Arabia’ s main terminal operator have signed a deal to jointly invest $ 434 million in Jeddah Islamic Port for a project that will add 2.6 million TEUs in annual capacity to the facility. The agreement to develop and operate Jeddah’ s terminal four was signed in Paris on Aug. 24 with Red Sea Gateway Terminal( RSGT) and is one of the largest foreign direct investments in the Saudi maritime sector. It also highlights the important role Jeddah plays as an alternative gateway to the war-torn Persian Gulf. The deal is CMA CGM’ s second massive terminal investment in the Middle East in the past few months following a $ 400 million agreement with Omani state-owned Asyad Group in June to develop and operate a multipurpose logistics terminal in the strategic Port of Sohar, just south of the Strait of Hormuz. The investment will be made in collaboration with the Saudi Ports Authority( Mawani) and is part of Saudi Arabia’ s ambitious master plan, known as the National Transport and Logistics Strategy and Vision 2030. The deal was signed as part of a French-Saudi investment roundtable meeting attended by Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and French President Emmanuel Macron.

El Niño compounds reefer market stress

The El Niño weather pattern now throttling all cargo going through the Panama Canal will also have a big impact on the refrigerated con- tainer trade into North America and Europe, market experts say. As exports ready for the Southern Hemisphere harvest season, cold-chain cargo could face even more disruptions than dry cargo well into 2027. Northsouth trades continue to overtake east-west trades in the reefer market, panelists said during a Journal of Commerce’ s TPM Cold-Chain webinar on Aug. 20. North America and Europe imported 1.49 million TEUs worth of refrigerated goods from Mexico and Central and South America in 2025, an 8.9 % rise from 2024, according to data from Global Trade Analytics, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. The growth in trade from Latin America is offsetting slower eastwest trades, said Philip Gray, senior associate at consultancy Drewry. Overall, the refrigerated containerized trade is growing at an annual average rate of 2.6 %, Gray said. The trans-Atlantic trade is largely flat, he said, as is the trans-Pacific westbound trade in proteins due to China becoming a net exporter of pork and chicken.“ We can see how [ the locations ] where things are produced and consumed are changing,” Gray said. In addition to fresh produce, South America is becoming a major source of beef for the US, said Grant Daly, who leads the North American cold-chain business for Maersk.

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