With this new port, Le Havre should position itself as 'the' port of entry or one of the major ports of entry for Asia in Europe," the northern city's mayor, Antoine Rufenacht, said at the inauguration ceremony last Thursday. "First China, for whom we want to become a privileged partner, then India and later perhaps also Brazil and Argentina should become very important targets," he added. The extension to the maritime port, situated at the mouth of the river Seine, took four years to complete and consists of a new quay, protected by a six-kilometre (four-mile) dike, at which a dozen ships can dock. The new quay will allow container traffic passing through the port to triple by 2015. Le Havre currently handles 60 percent of all containers arriving by sea in France. The container is the main method for transporting goods between continents. Everything from toothbrushes to microwave ovens are moved in containers, with only a few commodities such as oil, coal or wheat being unsuited to such transport. The container's dimensions conform to international norms and it is easily transferred from a ship to a truck or barge. European ports such as Antwerp in Belgium, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Hamburg in Germany have in recent years overtaken French ports -- Le Havre and Marseille on the Mediterranean being the two main ones. In 2005, some two million containers passed through Le Havre. But Antwerp, for example, handled 6.5 million containers the same year. France's leading shipping company, CMA-CGM, will be the first operator to use the new facilities in Le Havre. It has undertaken to move an annual 500,000 containers through the new dock. Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moeller-Maersk is set to begin operations there next year and is expected to move a similar amount. Port officials believe that the new dock will enable Le Havre to better profit from globalisation and its resulting growth in shipping. "Traffic in containers is progressing by between eight and nine percent a year and the forecasters tell us that that should last at least another 10 or 12 years," said one senior official. Ten years ago the port of Le Havre was in serious difficulties because of a high cost base and poor industrial relations which were driving away business. But unions and management changed strategy and began working together to assure customers that cargoes would be turned around on schedule. This prepared the conditions for growth and investment. President Jacques Chirac had been due to preside over the official opening of the new dock last week. But he decided to stay in Paris because of widespread social unrest sparked by his government's employment policies. AFP