TEESPORT is one of the few North-East businesses which is already reaping the rewards of EU expansion.

Earlier this month, Business Echo revealed that PD Teesport had managed to entice Lithuanian shipping line Kursiu Linija to the region to begin a twice-weekly Baltic service from the Tees.

The service, with the capacity to handle more than 1,000 containers a week, sails a circular route to Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Holland and Belgium.

Finnish-owned Container Ships, an existing Teesport customer, has also added Gdansk, in Poland, to its twice-weekly route to Helsinki and St Petersburg, with the potential to bring in an extra 50 containers a week, rising to 200 in a couple of years.

For David Robinson, managing director of PD Teesport, there is no question that next month's enlargement of the EU is a good thing for British business.

"Our mood is very positive," he said. "The opening up of the EU presents good opportunities not just for importers, but also exporters.

"Customs procedures are simplified and that allows goods to move a lot more freely. If the paperwork is simpler it therefore costs a lot less money to move goods, so a small exporter from Middlesbrough can look to those markets now because the process is so much easier."

Teesport is ideally-suited as the Baltic's gateway to the UK, well-placed geographically, with modern infrastructure. It is also ideally located for the Tees Valley's manufacturers to export their goods to the growing markets of Eastern Europe.

"At present, the Baltic countries are low-cost economies but as they grow they will become more sophisticated," said Mr Robinson. "There are a number of manufacturing companies in the Tees Valley which see potentially major opportunities to supply plants out there."

Of particular importance, he believes, is Poland - home to a potential market of almost 40 million people. At present, the Soviet-era dock infrastructure in Poland is so bad that goods are taken to Germany by road and exported from there. To remedy this, the EU is pouring aid into upgrading the port at Gdansk.

"Over the last few years the UK's manufacturing business has steadily declined," said Mr Robinson. "We have seen what has happened at Black & Decker and Samsung moving production to Eastern Europe and that is obviously bad news from a job perspective.

"But there is a flip side to that which is the goods those companies produce are still sold in the UK, we still need drills and we still need televisions and they will have to be imported through places like Teesport. Also, a lot of companies are looking to supply them with components and materials and again they have to go through places like Teesport."