The project, estimated at EUR 78m and slate for completion in 2018, involves deepening the seabed, building an additional 100 metres of coastline and expanding storage and logistics facilities, the company said in a press release.

Luka Koper says the project is in conformity with the planning documents for the port area and in line with an updated five-year programme for the development of the port that the government adopted on Thursday.

The port expects the demand for container transshipment in the northern Adriatic to hit six million units by 2030, more than double the current volume, which it says calls for an expansion of capacity.

Some 570,000 contained units were transshipped in Koper last year, which the company says is a third of all container traffic in the northern Adriatic. The plan is to expand the capacity to 1.4 million units within ten years and to over two million after 2022.