At a time when shipping companies are shrinking because of the global recession, the second-largest container shipper in the world will expand its operations at the Port of Philadelphia, transporting cargo from Europe.

In the next few weeks, Mediterranean Shipping Co. S.A., based in Geneva, Switzerland, will begin European shipments into the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia, the board of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority said yesterday.

"Our objective is to open a big bridge between Philadelphia and the world," Mediterranean's North American president, Claudio Bozzo, said yesterday.

"Every time we enter a port, we never leave," the shipping executive said. "We have decided to count on the fact that Philadelphia will grow, and we will be the ones that will make it happen."

Mediterranean Shipping, the No. 2 container-ship operator behind Maersk Line, of Copenhagen, Denmark, now brings cargo from the west coast of South America into Packer Avenue.

The Europe service will replace what was lost when Hamburg Süd, of Hamburg, Germany, pulled European shipments out of Philadelphia in June, costing the port about 20 percent of its container business.

Port Authority directors conferred by telephone yesterday and authorized staff to make final an agreement."I met with Mr. Bozzo on Monday. I was very impressed with his commitment and his desire to come to Philadelphia to grow their business," John H. Estey, the Port Authority chairman, told the board.

Mediterranean Shipping "is the only company actually growing in size this year," Estey said. "Every other shipping organization has shrunk, in double digits in many cases."

Robert C. Blackburn, the Port Authority's senior deputy executive director, said the service would be weekly, with 52 ships a year.

"We're hoping they can get to a level of bringing 1,000 containers per call," Blackburn said.

Like the airline industry, ports are feeling the squeeze of the economic downturn. As of June 30, total cargo at the Philadelphia port was down 15 percent this year - 1.7 million tons, compared with 2 million tons in 2008.

"We are hardest hit in the areas of steel, down 75 percent, and paper, off 40 percent," Blackburn said. Container shipments are down 6 percent.

"This new shot of business could turn that into a positive by year's end," he said.

An advantage of Mediterranean Shipping is its transshipment port in Freeport, Bahamas, where goods are transferred from one ship to another.

"We could access not only European cargoes, but the Mediterranean and Far East as well, using Freeport," Blackburn said. "They feel very confident that they can make this work and parlay this into several other opportunities. . . ."

In a telephone interview, Bozzo said: "We are not talking Europe only. It's an incredibly big deal. [Mediterranean Shipping] is the only line that did not lose market share compared to last year. Everybody is down.

"It's a great achievement of the port and the authority" in Philadelphia, he said. "And it's a new challenge we look forward to."

Mediterranean Shipping "decided to do business with the Holt family," operator of the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, "because they are experts on anything that has to do with fruit and refrigerated cargo," Bozzo said.

"They are for us a good partner."

Contact staff writer Linda Loyd at 215-854-2831 or lloyd@phillynews.com.