Cosco Pacific Ltd has agreed to take a stake in a terminal owned by Singapore's PSA Corp. With the purchase, the port arm of China's largest shipping company become the first overseas partner in the island's government-owned berths.

Cosco Pacific, the world's eighth-largest container-leasing company, will hold 49 percent stake in the venture Cosco-PSA Terminal Pte, while PSA will have the remainder, the Chinese operator said in a statement on its Website.

It didn't say how much it would invest in the project.

PSA, which runs the world's second-busiest container port in Singapore, last year said it may invite overseas shipping lines to manage their terminals in Singapore to stem defections to the Malaysian Port of Tanjung Pelepas.

Maersk Sealand, a unit of Denmark's AP Moeller, and Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan's largest shipping company, already switched to the Malaysian port.

Cosco Pacific, the Hong Kong-listed unit of China Ocean Shipping Group, and PSA signed the agreement yesterday in Hainan Island, the statement said.

In the past, PSA didn't allow overseas shipping lines to buy a stake in the city-state's port operations and only entered into joint ventures abroad.

Its latest venture will give Cosco Container Lines Co, a unit of the China Ocean Shipping Group, exclusive services.

"The joint venture is Cosco Pacific's first overseas port investment," Cosco said. "It will provide us with a solid foundation to further expand our fast-growing terminal business in Asia."

The venture would initially operate an existing berth with capacity to handle 500,000 20-foot equivalent unit containers. By 2008, it would have two berths with an annual handling capacity of 1 million TEUs, the statement said.

Cosco Container owns over 100 vessels with total capacity of 230,000 TEUs, and accounts for 4.2 percent of global volume. PSA handled 2.46 million TEUs in July, compared with 2.26 million units a year ago.

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