Following the item in TT Talk No. 53 about vertical tandem lifting, Andrew Kemp in the Club's Singapore office draws our attention to the imminent arrival of a crane that can lift two 40' units simultaneously.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported recently that the Shanghai-based Zhenhua Port Machine Company (ZPMC) has completed construction of this giant crane, the first of its kind in the world. The crane, the largest and most advanced container-lifting machine in the world, will be exported to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by the end of this year.

The enterprise has exported more than 1,500 cranes to 70 ports in 37 countries, taking more than half the global market for port machinery. It now manufactures one crane every two and a half days and is expected to achieve a production value of USD 1 billion in 2004.

ZPMC General Manager Guan Tongxian said that the company expects the newly-developed crane to bring "new momentum" to the global port industry. He gave no details of the contract with the UAE or other market responses to this latest addition to their range of equipment.