Liverpool City Region: SuperPort to drive growth

LIVERPOOL’s economic prospects could be transformed over the next two decades by investment into Liverpool 2 – the deep water container port being built at Seaforth on the Mersey.

This £300m development, is the central focus of the SuperPort – which includes a number of other logistics assets in the city region – which business leaders see as a “game changer” for the city as it will help remodel Liverpool
as the main multimodal freight and logistics hub for the north of England and Scotland.

Liverpool2 should be open at some stage in 2015 and is expected to add an extra 500,000 containers annually to the port’s capacity. It will take total annual volumes to around two million.

Click here to download TheBusinessDesk.com’s annual Liverpool City Region economic supplement, in association with Baker Tilly, Bruntwood and the North West Fund.

Rob Aitken, a partner in the Liverpool office of Baker Tilly says: “We will see a dramatic increase in trade. At the moment Liverpool can only take 10% of the ships in the world. After the expansion it will take 88%. The widening
of the Panama Ship Canal will make it the shortest route to Europe from China and Asia.

“Liverpool is starting to thrive again by refocusing on its competitive advantages. Its position as a port and a waterfront city are two such advantages.”

Jonathan Diggines of Enterprise Ventures, which manages the North West Fund’s Venture Capital and Mezzanine funds said: “Liverpool is a port city, and one weakness of an area on the coast is that 50% of your immediate potential customer base is water – but that is also a benefit to exploit. Liverpool is nowhere near as effective without a functioning port – it will bring huge benefits – employment, links and reasons to migrate in.”

Max Steinberg, chief executive of Liverpool Vision, the city region’s economic development agency added: “We’re going to have a port – and I have got chief executives of companies from round here and from national companies telling me that from 2015 they are going to be shipping into Liverpool – where now they are shipping into Rotterdam or
Zebrugge.

“That’s going to increase substantially the tonnage at the port and the logistics and distribution opportunities, the business opportunities. This city is potentially facing the biggest change in its DNA in 100 years.”

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