CANBERRA, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Funding has been announced for Australia's largest ship lift next to the Port of Darwin.
Matt Canavan, the minister for Northern Australia, on Tuesday evening confirmed that the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) has signed-off on a 300-million-Australian dollar (204.2-million-U.S. dollar) loan to the Northern Territory (NT) government for the ship lift, which will be completed by 2023.
The remaining 100 million Australian dollars (68.1 million U.S. dollars) for the project will come from the NT government under the terms of a 28-year loan term.
When finished, the facility will be able to lift ships weighing up to 5,000 tonnes and as long as 103 meters.
Currently large vessels in need of service must travel to the ship lift in Western Australia (WA), which Canavan said costs the Defence Department 500,000 Australian dollars (340,444 U.S. dollars) every time for naval vessels.
"By building this ship lift here ships that operate in the north won't have to go to the south for their maintenance to keep on the water," he said.
"It will mean the offshore patrol vessels, the Arafura class vessels, won't have to travel 10 days all the way to Fremantle and back, just to get maintenance done."
Michael Gunner, the NT's chief minister, said the facility would be a "critical" piece of infrastructure that would help lift the NT out of significant debt.
"The way through it is to create jobs like this in the services sector - consistent, permanent, ongoing jobs," he said.
