Agreement Carnival - Fincantieri for the construction of four cruise ships



The crocieristico group American Carnival Corporation has signed an agreement with the company navalmeccanica Italian Fincantieri for the construction of four cruise ships, of which two of 135.500 tons of tonnage and destined the unitary ability to 4.200 passengers to the Costa Asia brand whom employees in China will come, one of equal tonnage and ability for brand P&O Cruises Australia and specifically dedicated at the market Australian and the fourth, of the class "Royal Princess", of 143.700 tons of tonnage and the ability to 3.560 passengers for the crocieristico brand Princess Cruises that will follow the units of the same class Royal Princess, Regal Princess and Majestic Princess currently under construction near the plants of Fincantieri and in delivery in 2017.

The agreement takes part of the program of new constructions that Carnival has agreed with the Italian group last March ( on 27 March 2015). The contracts for the four new ships, subjects to various conditions between which the financing to the shipowning group, they will be operating in the course of 2016 and will have a total value of about 2,5 billion euros.

Fincantieri will construct the four ships in the ship yards of Monfalcone and of Marghera and it will deliver between 2019 and 2020 to them.

"The construction of these four new ships - the managing director of Carnival Corporation has explained, Arnold Donald - affords in the long term to respect us our plan of potenziamento of the fleet and our strategy of increase of the ability measured in the time". "These investments - it has added - are an important part of our strategy, that it includes the substitution of the ships with newer units, larger and more efficient in a period much specific one of time".

The managing director of Fincantieri, Giuseppe Bono, has found that "the signature of this agreement arrives during a true boom of the crocieristico field, that it goes beyond every expectation. In this way - it has emphasized - confirmation once again the validity of our strategy because with these projects, that they derive from those for the acquired units prototype during the crisis to extremely challenging conditions, our group makes sure not only continuity and development, but also a found again profit in this section". The Italian navalmeccanico group has evidenced that "the cooperation between Fincantieri and Carnival Corporation, than this year for the first time in absolute they have announced a program of such capacity, not only has most remarkable the strategic valence for the shipbuilding one but for the entire national economy. The agreements in fact in the long term delineate a plan of activity by one of the greater foreign investor in Italy, the American group Carnival Corporation, that it has invested in the Country beyond 25 billion dollars by virtue of the partnership with Fincantieri. From 1990 today - it has remembered the shipbuilding company - Fincantieri in fact has constructed 59 ships for the various brands of Carnival Corporation, and others 10 units for the group are currently in the pocketbook orders of the society".

Manifesting satisfaction for the profitable prosecuzione of partnership the strategic one of long date with Fincantieri, the managing director of the crocieristico group Coast, Michael Thamm - it has observed that "this new investment will carry benefits and occupation to the entire Country. As already happened for Costa Diadema, the last ship of the fleet Coast constructed from Fincantieri and symbol of the "best of Italy" - it has specified Thamm - also the ships for Costa Asia will be planned with an innovative Italian design. Moreover this new agreement will afford us to continue to grow the market of the cruises in China, that it will become according to market to the world in the end of this decade". Costa Crociere has evidenced that "the projects for the construction of the new ships will involve thousands of workers of the yards and employee of the induced one. The benefits for the occupation will not regard only the yards but, above all for the preparation of the internal ones, also external enterprises, the majority of which are Italian". Moreover the crocieristica company, with center in Italy, has remembered that thanks to the new agreement the group Coast salt to eight new ships in order with a total ability to 45.000 beds (four for German the brand Aida Cruises, two for that Italian Costa Crociere and two for Costa Asia), that they will carry the fleet to a total of 110.000 beds.

The executive chairman of Carnival Australia, Ann Sherry, and the president of P&O Cruises Australia, Sture Myrmell, has expressed satisfaction for the first ship of new at the market Australian destined construction: "the first cruise ship of new construction much wait - it has asserted Sherry - represents a great certificate of confidence in the Australian crocieristico market whose annual increase of 20% of the passengers in the past decade has been in great part hauled from the dynamic leadership of P&O Cruises".