The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) would intend to buy the Romanian shipyard Damen Mangalia, by the way - announced the Romanian edition of the "Radio Free Europe" - that the Swiss group would have demonstrated to the Bucharest government. MSC, which would have paid repairs to their ships in advance to be carried out at the Romanian shipyard, which has been in a state of insolvency for a year, would therefore be in competition with the Turkish Desan Shipyard which has in Negotiations to take over the management of the construction site ( of 1 April 2025).

Specifying that the activity in the Romanian shipyard is resumed last month and currently about 800 employees are working on the repair of two ships, while over 100 workers are on layoffs, "Radio Free Europe" has stated that on 20 April Prabhat Jha, director of the delegate of MSC Shipmanagement Limited, a Cypriot company of the MSC group, sent a letter to Marcel Ciolacu, then Prime Minister of Romania, Marian Neacsu, Deputy Prime Minister, and to Ilie Bolojan, at the time interim president of Romania, in - the press agency announced, specifying that it had taken of the letter - wrote that, "subject to the support and approval of the Romanian Government for the management and the operation of the Mangalia shipyard by MSC, we clarify that MSC intends to develop the activity of the construction site and hire local staff, contributing to the growth of employment in the region. MSC initially undertakes to draw on managerial staff and external expertise and, subsequently, to develop human resources at the local level".

"For the maintenance of its fleet - continues the letter - MSC owns property facilities in localities in particular the basins of Antwerp and Naples. MSC therefore has the experience and resources necessary to manage shipyards such as the one in Mangalia. The growth of the fleet of MSC requires large shipyard for new currently concentrated in Asia for container ships and in Europe for cruise ships. We mean - explained Jha in the letter - take into consideration the shipyard of Mangalia for the future construction of cruise ships, ro-pax and of tugboats".

A representative of Damen Mangalia who wanted to keep anonymity confirmed to "Radio Free Europe" that "MSC intends to bring ships for repairs to the Mangalia shipyard and which has paid some advances so that the company can dispose of of funds to pay part of the salaries. Usually, he specified - for repairs, no advances are paid and the money is paid at the end of the works. The fact that they pay an advance shows their good intentions."

In 2018, 49% of the share capital of the shipyard of Mangalia, formerly owned by South Korea's Daewoo, was acquired by the Dutch shipbuilding group Damen, who last year had filed for bankruptcy for the shipyard, while the remaining 51% of the capital is held since 2018 by the Romanian government through Santierul Naval 2 Mai, a company wholly controlled by the Ministry of the Economy.