Clean-up under way after loss of nearly 300 containers from MSC cargo vessel
In one such US deal, QIA and hedge fund Elliott Management in December 2017 took Gigamon, the US networking software company, private for $1.6bn.
Mahmoud was speaking as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Qatar on a tour of the region.
Qatar is at loggerheads with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, which have cut off diplomatic and transport ties with Doha, accusing it of backing terrorism and cosying up to Iran.
Qatar denies supporting terrorism and its government is seeking to use the sanctions enforced by its neighbours as an opportunity to develop its own industry and its relations with other countries.
The value of bilateral trade between Qatar and the US has doubled in 10 years, Qatar’s trade minister Ali al-Kuwairi said at the US-Qatar Strategic Dialogue conference. He said the US tops the list of exporters to the Gulf nation. | Reuters SWISS shipping line MSC has started cleaning up Dutch sea waters, 10 days after it lost nearly 300 containers from one of its largest cargo vessels in a storm.
“The clean-up will likely take months”, Dutch water authorities spokesperson Edwin de Feijter said at the weekend. “The largest part of the debris has been located, but there are still parts missing.”
At least 291 containers, some holding hazardous chemicals, fell off one of the world’s largest container ships, the MSC Zoe, on January 2 in German waters near the island of Borkum during a North Sea storm.
Two salvage ships left the harbour at IJmuiden, near Amsterdam, on Friday night, heading towards a container north of the tiny Rottumerplaat island, which is blocking an important shipping route between Germany and the Netherlands. Work was planned to start at midday on Saturday, but rough weather looked set to delay the operation, De Feijter said, adding that 238 objects had been identified in the water so far.
“Those objects are not all entire containers, they can also be part of the cargo lost from broken ones.”
Seventeen containers washed up on shore on the Dutch islands of Terschelling, Vlieland, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog. Reuters