Plans to expand the New Zealand Port of Gisborne, have stumbled yet again as the Gisborne District Council (GDC) struggles to find a balance between local pressure to retain the port in community ownership and the need to raise capital to repay the port's debt and fund new development.
Gisborne needs to provide additional capacity for the so-called wall of wood" that will be processed over the next 20 years. The forestry industry has asked the port to provide for a fivefold increase over the next 25 years. The problem is the port, 100 percent owned by the GDC, has debts of around NZ$17 mill and cannot finance the necessary development itself. A substantial investment also must be made to upgrade roads between the forests and the port....
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Approx 410 words from WorldCargo News, July 2002,
page 4.
