Partnership for “final assembly” of cranes in the US

Mitsui E&S has announced that its US subsidiary PACECO Corp has partnered with Brookfield to set up a facility to assemble container cranes in California.

The announcement was included in a list of “political understandings that were affirmed or reaffirmed” during an Official Visit to the US by Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio this week.

The Biden Administration had already announced that PACECO would resume production of container cranes in the US.

This new statement adds that PACECO will “re-establish final assembly of port cranes in California, the United States”, and announces that Brookfield of Canada will be involved as an investment partner.

The statement clarifies that PACECO will “assemble”, rather than fabricate container cranes in the US, which could have been interpreted from the earlier announcement. WorldCargo News understands that PACECO will target RTGs initially, although no details of where the crane sections will be fabricated are known at this point. There are already rumours, however, that PACECO’s plans include setting up assembly facilities on both the US West and East coasts.

The US and Japan are moving much closer together as the US looks to move quickly to remove China as a supplier of infrastructure and other systems it deems as critical infrastructure and/or a cyber security risk.

In its briefing notes on bilateral agreements and other measures the White House said: “This is the first time since 1989 that the United States has had this capacity, and it is expected to contribute to securing the safety of U.S. port infrastructure.”

In a related measure the two countries have agreed to establish a joint working group to “develop an action plan on achieving mutual recognition on cybersecurity labelling schemes for Internet of Things.”