Fiji Ports Terminal Limited (FPTL) in the past four years has spent over $10 million in procuring equipment to provide quality services to their customers.

This includes the recent inclusion of three $4.3 million 45 tonne reach stackers and a seven high empty handler from world’s leading cargo equipment infrastructure Kalmar Australia Limited.

FPTL chairman Hasmukh Patel while receiving the new machines at the King’s Wharf on Monday said they were part of the company’s con­tainer handling machinery replace­ment plan.

“We have produced three state of the art 45 tonne reach stackers and a seven high empty handler from Kalmar at a total value of $4.3 mil­lion,” Mr Patel said.

“We will continue to purchase new machines, in our endeavour to pro­vide quality services to our valued customers,” he said.

“The organisation in no doubt on the path of continuous development and whilst we improve our assets we are also focussing on raising the standards of our human resources.

“The new set of equipment will help our staff carry out their jobs more efficiently and effectively. Fiji Ports plan is as when the year of our services grows, our services to our customers also continue to grow,” he said.

He said machine operators at Suva Port would be train on how effec­tively they could operate the ma­chines.

“We have different types of equip­ment’s here at Fiji Ports Terminal Limited. As an on-going programme FPTL will continue to reap the ben­efits of Kalmar’s expertise,” he said.

“We are also highly conscious of the environmental impacts of their operations and these new ma­chines would greatly assist in the transforming and development of Fiji ports towards the Green Ports Concept.

“I would like to acknowledge the Kalmar Australia team of director Michael Wahab and product spe­cialist Paul Thompson for the won­derful machinery and the technical assistance and support,” he said.

FPTL chief executive officer Hasthika Dela said they had pur­chased eleven container handling equipment the last four years.

“We procured two new reach snip­er (machines) in 2014 and we pro­cured another six in 2016 and these four new ones,” Mr Dela said.

“With this we hope to improve our services for the customers,” he said.