THE National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) signed a murabaha financing agreement with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) recently to finance part of the total construction cost of building two General Cargo vessels at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in South Korea. The value of the financing contract is equivalent to $120,000,000. These two vessels are part of the contract signed in March 2011 for the construction of six General Cargo vessels which will be received in sequence starting from early 2013 onward. The General Cargo sector represents an important journey for the company since its foundation which includes transport of Project Cargos, General Cargos and RoRos, in addition to containers, from US East Cost & Canadian ports to Jeddah & Dammam in Saudi Arabia through Dubai and ending the voyage in West Coast of India in a pendulum service. The company has built strong operational and technical expertise to this sector which led to the excellent reputation, offering reliable schedules and competitive rates, coupled with an integrated logistics services for its customers. The company secured a contract last year to transport all the shipments for The Ministry of Defense (MOD) for 3 years. Under this contract, the company is appointed as an official carrier for all the branches of the armed forces to perform different kinds of transportation and logistics services internationally by sea, air & land. In this context, the company also signed a strategic cooperation contract with Saudi Arabia Airlines (Air Cargo) for three year period to transport by air the goods & equipment which are urgent for its customers in order to strengthen and diversify the company's services integrated to its clients. Moreover, during the first quarter of 2012, the company signed a contract with Qatar Aluminum Company to transport aluminum shipments from Qatar to the US on all voyages for a period of one year with an option to extend it further by another year. The estimated value of the contract is about SR51 million. – SG
