Exports in the front row
State-owned CP sold its railfreight subsidiary CP Carga to MSC in 2015; great criticism followed in 2016, when the firm was renamed Medlog, or Medway in Portugal. The reinvigorated entity is now investing massively in Vila Nova de Famalicão.
The Portuguese railfreight operator Medway is building the largest rail-road transhipment terminal on the Iberian Peninsula in Vila Nova de Famalicão, in the Braga district, around 50 km north of Porto. The new 200,000 sqm dry port will have the capacity to store 10,000 teu and will be connected to the Linha do Minho by rail from Lousado. The line runs from Porto to Vigo (Spain) via Valença, which ensures that it is also well-connected to Spain’s railway network.
The facility’s strategy is geared primarily to Portuguese ports, however. Vila Nova de Famalicão is home to dozens of companies active in the textile, agro-food as well as the metals industries, with most of them heavily focused on the export side of business. In 2017, products worth about USD 2 billion were exported from there to countless countries. Initially, the plans envisage running six freight trains a day from there to the deepwater port of Sines, which is located around 90 km south of Lisbon as the crow flies.
The privatisation of the state-owned firm CP Carga is paying off for Portugal. The freight railway that emerged from CP Carga now belongs to the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the second-largest container shipping line worldwide, after Maersk. The freight railway, renamed Medway in Portugal in 2016, is now making major investments.
It is the sole investor in a EUR 35 million project in Vila Nova de Famalicão. No European, national or regional subsidies have been authorised in support of the undertaking. The two companies, MSC and Medway, are also the driving forces behind the expansion of the freight corridor from Sines to Badajoz (Spain), via Évora and Elvas. This is due to be completed by 2022 (see also page 22 of ITJ 15-16 / 2018).