OREANDA-NEWS. On the 5th December 2008 First Container Terminal (FCT, part of NCC group) handled its millionth TEU since the beginning of the year.

For the first time ever, turnover of Russia's container terminal exceeded 1M TEU.

The millionth container was delivered to the terminal by containership MSC IRIS of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

FCT was founded in October 1998 and celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. For 10 years FCT handled 5.9 M TEU, and all the Russian ports for the same time - 17M TEU, i.e. the terminal handled 35% of the national container traffic (including expected results of 2008). FCT's development program envisages further growth of the terminal's throughput capacity up to 1.6M by 2012.

Today FCT remains not only the largest container terminal Russia and the Baltic region, but also the leader by technological development and client service quality.

The significant result of FCT's development was achieved in a greater part due to the state-of-the-art technologies implemented at terminal's operation. First of all, this is:

• terminal's IT system, which allows to computerize all business processes in operational and financial activity and maintain paper-free document flow;
• service centre, where all the functions of cargo paperwork and the offices of state control agencies will be localized;
• time-slot system, which allows to plan transport ingress to the terminal and eliminate a long queue of container trucks at the terminal's entrance;
• remote access technology, by means of which all links of the supply chain (shipping lines agents, forwarding companies, cargo owners) gain on-line information about container handling and transport visit to the terminal via the Internet.

In 2002 FCT became a part of the National Container Company group which helped to develop and start realizing its long-term investment program. Altogether NCC invested USD 230М in FCT's development for these years.