Andrew Moffat, Chief Executive Officer, Port of Tyne says:
"This is more welcome news from Nissan and the Port of Tyne is delighted to play a part in Nissan's continuing success by ensuring the company can get its cars to market very quickly and efficiently, helping to make it highly competitive across the world."
Nissan operates its car terminal at the Port of Tyne, just seven miles from the Sunderland plant and exported a record number of its current models, the Juke, Note and Qashqai last year.
The Port has three car terminals, one of which is in North Tyneside and is operated for the import of VW cars whilst the other is a transhipment terminal, a holding centre for all makes and models en route to markets all over the world.
The Port's growing logistics business also handles the import and warehousing of car parts supporting the Sunderland plant's highly sophisticated just in time processes.
The Port of Tyne is now the no. 1 car handling port in the UK, having accommodated 667,000 cars in 2011 and is 7th in Europe.
This and the Port's other diverse business areas currently contributes £467m to the economy of the North East region each year - supporting over 9,000 jobs in the region.