War in Ukraine: The Port of Duisburg ceases all business activity in Belarus
duisport-CEO Markus Bangen: “We unreservedly close this chapter.”
Duisburger Hafen AG is ceasing all business activity in Belarus with immediate effect. This decision was taken in view of the war in Ukraine and the support of this war by Belarus. The decision is based on close coordination between the Executive Board, the Supervisory Board and shareholders.
duisport will divest both its minority stake (0.59 percent) in the international development company of the industrial and logistics park Great Stone as well as its stake in Eurasian Rail Gateway CJCS (38.9 percent) that planned the building and operation of a bimodal terminal. Furthermore, our representative office in Minsk has already definitively been closed.
At the time of the investment, Germany and the EU had been engaged in a constructive dialog with Belarus. The developments since the last presidential election and the support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were not foreseeable.
“Our thoughts are with the people in Ukraine and we hope for a quick end of the war”, says duisport-CEO Markus Bangen. “We unreservedly close this chapter of our engagement in Belarus. We have already been critically questioning our activities there since the elections in 2020 and upon instigation by the Chairman of the Supervisory Board have reviewed our course of action. However, as an international consortium, we were not able and are not able to take steps unilaterally. In the current situation, however, it is all the more important for us to send a message by cutting all business ties with Belarus and conducting specific negotiations with our co-shareholders regarding the exit from the companies”, adds Markus Bangen.
The Port of Duisburg neither conducts business in Russia or Ukraine nor does it have any holdings there.
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