First super-size container ship to call at port of Liverpool within months

he Port of Liverpool's new 522 million U.S. dollar deep water container port will welcome its first super-size container ship before the end of 2015, the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership announced Monday.

Billed as the container port for central Britain, the new facility is geographically the first European port of call from the Americas.

The new deep-water port, known as Liverpool 2, will enable the largest post-panamax container ships to sail for the first time into the River Mersey.

Liverpool is already a major port for trans-Atlantic container ships, but the current dock is too small to accommodate the new generation of super-size vessels.

The project, nearing completion, has involved reclaiming a large area of seabed to enable a deep-water berth to be built.

To coincide with the building of the new facility the city region economic partnership body, known as the Local Enterprise Partnership, announced Monday an international marketing campaign.

Branded under the umbrella name of Superport, the deep-water dock forms part of a bigger 1.5 billion U.S. dollar investment program aimed at helping the North West region claim it's place at the center of British economics.

Mark Basnett, director of the enterprise partnership said: "We have over 35 million people within 150 miles of the region. Half of the UK's container market is closer to Liverpool than other deep water ports in the south of England.

"The marketing campaign aims to tell the story of Supermarket to the world. Superport has the potential to shift the gravity of international trade to the North West to rebalance the UK economy." Endit