Instead of having three railway tracks, the terminal now has five extended tracks, meaning that five trains, including those longer than 700 metres, can be handled at the same time.

The 320-tonne cranes, each worth EUR 3m, can be further upgraded or expanded for the use on two extra tracks.

The company will continue investing in the container terminal to increase its transshipment capability to 1.3 million container units, CEO Drago Matić said at today's ceremony.

The port handled almost 845,000 container units in 2016.

The investments will be carried out in four phases, with the new crane rail and cranes wrapping up the first phase.

Almost 60% of containers leave Luka Koper by train and the percentage is expected to further increase in the future, said Marko Babič, the head of the container terminal.

By summer, a third crane should become operative, he added.