DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) -- Syria signed a 30-year contract with French shipping giant CMA CGM to develop and run the port of Latakia, the port’s director and a company official said on 1 May.

Joseph Dakak, CMA CGM’s regional director, said he was “pleased to announce the signing of an investment and management contract for the port of Latakia for the next 30 years.”

“Within the framework of this contract, we committed to modernizing the port, expanding it, and deepening its basin, so that it can accommodate larger ships and handle all the expected quantities of goods anticipated to arrive in Syria in the coming years,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) at the signing ceremony.

The contract was signed in the presence of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus.

Port director Ahmed Mustafa told AFP the agreement included an investment of 230 million euros ($260 million) to upgrade the facility, including the construction of a new pier built to “global standards.”

A sum of 30 million euros (nearly $34 million) will be injected in the first year, and a new quay is expected to be built “in the four years following the first year” with an investment value of up to 200 million euros ($226 million), according to Mustafa.

This new infrastructure will allow “the entry of large ships that are currently unable to access Latakia’s port,” Mustafa added.

For the port’s operational revenues, Mustafa said that “they will be divided between CMA CGM and the Syrian state, with 60 percent for the Syrian state and 40 percent for (the company),” adding that the percentage is subject to change with “the increase in the number of containers entering the country.”

Syria’s general ports authority had announced back in February that it held meetings with CMA CGM, which operates Latakia’s terminal containers, during which an agreement was reached to “conclude a new management contract.”

CMA CGM had operated the port’s container terminal since 2009, during the rule of former president Bashar al-Assad, under a previous contract that was renewed several times before this long-term agreement, the port director said.