Gunther Bonz, President of FEPORT.
Brussels, 3rd, 2015 “When dialogue and cooperation between seaside and landside prevail, no further regulation is needed”
Gathered for the General Assembly in Brussels, FEPORT members touched upon some of the topics to be discussed in the framework of the Stakeholders’ conference hosted by FEPORT on the same day.
Terminal operators, like other actors of the chain, are facing challenges resulting from the increase in size of ships. They are since many years massively investing in equipment and adapting to accommodate their clients’ needs. FEPORT members are ready to continue to do it as long as they can recoup their investments. This is unfortunately becoming more and more difficult due to the rapid obsolescence of the equipment used to accommodate ships which are getting bigger and bigger.
There is general agreement among FEPORT members that it has become urgent for all institutional and non-institutional stakeholders to acknowledge the ever increasingly obvious cascading effects resulting from the increasing size of ships on
the whole logistics chain. Those effects and the subsequent costs to adapt and build infrastructure and superstructure, to reorganize the work force and the logistics chain, to mitigate the environmental effects of all necessary operations are becoming a source of concern in a context of low growth.
Dialogue between the landside and the sea side must therefore start now because it constitutes one relevant option to handle operational challenges along the chain thus avoiding unnecessary further regulation.
FEPORT members are looking forward to, as of today, starting a fruitful dialogue with all actors of the supply and logistics chain as well as with all EU institutional stakeholders to further raise awareness about the challenges the logistics chain is facing.
“All parties involved in supply and logistics chains are contributing to the EU economy and creating jobs and want to continue to do it. It is therefore important to discuss with each other to make sure that decisions by some parties of the chain do The Federation of European Private Port Operators not become detrimental to the competitiveness of other EU businesses.” commented Gunther Bonz, President of FEPORT.
