(Yicai Global) Nov. 27 -- Qingdao Port International will take a 33.3 percent stake in the Abu Dhabi arm of Cosco Shipping Ports, the port operation unit of state-owned shipping giant China Cosco Shipping, for USD59.3 million to gain access to its newly opened Khalifa Port joint venture.

The investment, which will be made through Qingdao Port's Hong Kong subsidiary QDP International Development, will give the port operator a 30 percent holding in the CSP Abu Dhabi Terminal at Khalifa Port in which the Hong Kong-based firm holds a 90 percent stake, Qingdao Port said in a statement yesterday.

Opened last December with a total investment of over USD300 million, the terminal is a venture between CSP and Abu Dhabi Ports. It boasts a depth of 16.5 meters and can accommodate the world's largest vessels of more than 20,000 twenty-feet equivalent units. It has a planned handling capacity of 2.5 million such vessels a year.

The deal will allow Qingdao Port to expand its overseas business and to also benefit from high returns from the region's largest container freight station, estimated to be around 9.6 percent a year, the company said.

Once the transaction is complete, Qingdao Port will use its rich experience of port management to improve the terminal's operational efficiency and provide better services to shipping companies in the Middle East.

The two parties are tightly connected. Shanghai-based Cosco holds around 20 percent of the equity in Qingdao Port traded on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. It is also the port's second-largest shareholder after the Qingdao local government.