OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2013. The Belgian company Katoen Natie opened a warehouse complex for handling of goods headed for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the port of Muuga just outside Tallinn.

The inauguration of the 25,000 square meter warehouse complex also marks the launch of the Muuga industrial park of Port of Tallinn, the Estonian state-owned port company.

The total cost of the project is 30 million euros and the logistics center will provide 60 jobs, Katoen Natie Eesti AS said.

"We are planning to expand the Muuga logistics center gradually: the warehouse area should double to 66,000 square meters by the end of 2015," Katoen Natie Eesti AS board chairman Mart Melles said.

Ain Kaljurand, CEO of Port of Tallinn, described Katoen Natie, one of the largest logistics companies in the world, as a quality stamp both for Estonia and Port of Tallinn. "For Muuga Harbor, the opening of the Katoen Natie logistics center means a huge step towards becoming a distribution hub on the Baltic Sea. Katoen Natie is the key client of the industrial park opened today, and its example will be followed by other logistics and production companies whose buildings will rise nearby in the nearest future," Kaljurand said.

The new logistics center will be used to transport a variety of groups of goods in the Baltic Sea region, of which cocoa products, consumer goods, plastic goods etc. are the most important. In addition to the indoor storage areas, the construction of a 600 square meter office building and a railway section nearly one kilometer long has been completed.

Katoen Natie has already started to build a second warehouse of 16,000 square meters, which will be completed this September. There are plans to build one more 25,000 square meter warehouse and 44 tanks for the handling of bulk plastic granules.

After the completion of the second and then the third phase in 2015, Katoen Natie's total warehouse capacity at Muuga will amount to 66,000 square meters, making it the largest logistics center in Estonia.

Katoen Natie owns 150 logistics centers all over the world and the total capacity of all the warehouses operated by it is more than five million square meters.