l to r: José A. Carbonell, Antonio M. Padrón and Rosa Puig
Capt. Antonio M. Padrón y Santiago, “IMO Maritime Ambassador” and Maritime Authority of Tenerife visited the Port Authority of Barcelona, and was received by its Director General, Mr. José A. Carbonell and the Commercial Director, Mrs. Rosa Puig.
During the meeting, the IMO Maritime Ambassador explained the functions of his office, as advocate for the maritime and seafaring professions, trying to engage young people to consider careers at sea or in the maritime industries with the goal of inspire a new generation of maritime experts and seafarers.
The Director General of the Port Authority of Barcelona offered its full cooperation, also highlighting the importance of nautical qualifications and the maritime professions for the, increasingly more sophisticated, ports and terminals.
Port of Barcelona – Container Terminal
The Port of Barcelona’s mission is:
“To contribute to its customers’ competitiveness by providing efficient services that respond to their needs for maritime transport, land transport and logistics services.”
To accomplish its mission, the Port of Barcelona has evolved in parallel to the hinterland it serves. Its region is characterised by a wide range of productive sectors that have given us a diversified port responding to all of these sectors: car industry, foodstuffs, energy products, chemicals, metal products, building materials and sectors related to distribution and trade.
The Port of Barcelona holds a customer portfolio of nearly 3, 000 companies, which represent a combined turnover of 300 billion euros and generate more than a million jobs.
Another view of the Port of Barcelona
Each sector has different logistics needs. The Port of Barcelona has specialised in line with the various requirements of its customers. Value generation by the Port is based upon provision of a wide range of services within the supply chain as goods pass through the port. These services go beyond traditional port operations and create competitive advantages in our customers’ production and marketing processes.
The Port plays an outstanding role in providing dynamism and internationalising the industrial and commercial fabric of the area. The Port therefore has a great responsibility, as other strategic sectors of the country depend upon its growth and projection.
International shipping’s prefeence for the Port of Barcelona
What does the Port produce as a service infrastructure?
The activities performed by the Port of Barcelona – ship, logistics and intermodal transport services – directly and indirectly generate Gross Added Value (GAV) for the economy to the tune of 2.291 billion euros, or 1.4% of Catalonia’s total GAV.
An additional 58 € of GAV are generated in the economy for every 100 € of income generated directly by the companies of the Port. T
he companies of the Port Community employ 13, 365 people directly, and this, added to the indirect employment created, makes a total of 32, 101 jobs, representing 0.9% of Catalonia’s job market.
For every two jobs at the Port of Barcelona, three additional jobs are generated in the economy as a whole.
How does the Port of Barcelona benefit its customers?
The Port’s contribution to its customers’ competitiveness is equivalent to 6.1% of the sales of the industrial and commercial sectors of Catalonia, or 22.865 billion euros.
Much of this comes from the increase in sales of its customer companies, achieved as a result of the Port of Barcelona boosting their internationalisation and diversification by providing them access to a wide range of foreign markets within the required time, frequency and quality levels.
The increase in external activity of Catalonia’s productive sectors likewise generate a series of additional incomes or economic activity equivalent to 5.7% of Catalonia’s GAV and job creation representing 5.4% of the total.
Overall, the Port of Barcelona is directly or indirectly responsible for 7.1% of the GAV and 6.3% of the employment in Catalonia.
The benefits provided by the Port to its customers are much greater than the economic value produced by the Port as a services infrastructure. The Port’s influence upon the production processes and sales of the companies using it for their import and export activity far exceeds the volume of goods passing through it, since they have a direct impact on the level of competitiveness of its customers’ logistics chains and indeed on the wealth generated by the Catalan economy as a whole.
Port of Barcelona – the cruise terminal
The Port of Barcelona and its contribution to the city’s tourism sector
The city of Barcelona’s tourist activity has continued to grow over the last few years, making this sector one of the foundations of the city’s economy. Barcelona receives more than 7 million tourists each year, equivalent to 14 million overnight stays. The economic impact of tourism on the city is calculated at 22 million euros per day and generates 100, 000 jobs.
The Port of Barcelona’s contribution to the city’s tourism sector revolves around the development in cruiser traffic.
The Port’s investments in the cruiser sector are a very important contribution to Catalonia’s tourism sector. Over the past decade, more than 100 million euros have been invested building, enlarging and modernising cruiser infrastructures.
With more than 2, 500, 000 cruise-goers and 900 stopovers in 2011, the Port of Barcelona has consolidated its position as Europe’s top cruise port, and ranks fourth worldwide. It is a benchmark for the cruiser industry.
It is calculated that cruise passengers spent 300 million euros in the city of Barcelona in 2011. This figure includes expenditure on hotels, restaurants, excursions, commerce and transport.
In addition to the money spent by tourists, cruise ships provide much more to the local economy in terms of provisions, crew expenses, auxiliary industries, fuel, machinery, paints, etc.
Overall figures provided by a study from the European Cruise Council indicate that the cruise industry provided Spain with 1.190 billion euros in 2010 and generated more than 25, 000 direct, indirect and induced jobs.
