Motherwell is sending 16 cranes to Togo and Cameroon.

Engineering firm Motherwell Bridge will be constructing 16 cranes to be used on container terminals in West Africa.

The project was announced by Economy Minister Chris Cardona during a visit to the firm’s Ħal Far premises yesterday.

A company spokeswoman said the project would see the firm deliver 12 rubber-tyred gantry cranes to a container terminal in Togo and four more to a container terminal in Cameroon.

This will be the first time the firm has deployed its specialist teams to West Africa and one of the first times a Maltese operator has worked in the region. Maltese mechanical and electrical engineers will begin work on the project towards the end of May. The entire project is expected to be completed in six months.

Dr Cardona welcomed the project as a major sign of the country’s viability in the engineering sector.

“What we see here is that engineering and all services related to manufacturing remain an important part of the Maltese economy. The expertise built over two decades lives on today at Motherwell Bridge,” he said.

The West Africa project comes just weeks after Motherwell Bridge completed the construction and commissioning of 12 automatic stacking cranes in Abu Dhabi at a key container terminal in the region.