Enrique Razon Jr. at his Solaire Resort and Casino office in Manila.
Manila-based International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI)—controlled by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr.—is investing more than $230 million in the next few years to expand the capacity of its terminal at the Port of Manzanillo in Mexico by over 40%.
When completed in five years’ time, the port will have the capacity to handle more than 2 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) cargo containers from its current level of 1.4 million TEUs, making it the biggest terminal in Mexico’s Pacific coast, ICTSI said in a statement on Thursday.
“Manzanillo is the most important node of international logistics in the Pacific coast of Mexico and it will continue to be so,” Jose Antonio Contreras, CEO of ICTSI subsidiary Contecon Manzanillo, said in the statement. “We are convinced that this expansion, as well as the construction of land access to the northern zone of the terminal and the acquisition of new inspection equipment for Customs, will consolidate and strengthen the port’s position among competitors.”
The project will upgrade the terminal’s infrastructure, enabling the port to handle mega container ships of up to 400 meters, ICTSI said. The Philippine-listed port giant has been expanding its cargo handling capacity around the world as global trade recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Its flagship port in Manila is undertaking a 15 billion peso ($269 million) expansion. In July, the company bought a controlling stake in an Indonesian port, broadening its footprint in Southeast Asia’s most populous country, where it operates two other facilities.
Besides ICTSI, Razon is also the controlling shareholder of Philippine-listed Bloomberry Resorts—operator of the Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila—as well as privately held Prime Infrastructure Capital, which has been building its portfolio of water utilities, gas and renewable energy assets. Razon has a net worth of $6.3 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time data.