Rotterdam council this week pushed mayor and aldermen to press on with plans to turn the world's largest port into a limited liability company. Mayor and aldermen must submit proposals on the idea before May, the council decided late on Thursday.

The city council said the port management will perform better if the port is forced to return a profit to government shareholders than as a part of the city's civil service.

This would eliminate bottlenecks in raising money to build large infrastructure projects at the port such as the second Maasvlakte extension.

And the central government could get a return on its EUR600 Mln. investment in the Maasvlakte by taking a minority stake in the corporation. As majority shareholder, the city council, in turn, would keep the port's management in hand.