ANCONA: Time is money and efficiency makes for lower costs, as is well-known in the world of maritime transport and logistics. Every year millions of tons of merchandise transit through Mediterranean ports. Every day, dozens of ships unload containers, oil, grains, food, chemical products and vehicles.
The profitability of the ships depends on speed, as any delay results in added costs that have knock-on effects on the entire economic chain, from the producer down to the final customer.
Rationalizing trade translates into lowering costs. This leads to the need to make maritime trade connections more fluid, speeding up the supply chain and reducing port logistics costs. This is the goal of the Mediterranean Network for Custom Procedures and Simplification of Clearance in Ports (Mednet) as part of the Med Call Strategic project in the transport section.
Rete Autostrade Mediterranee (RAM, ‘Mediterranean highways network’) is the leader and the project is also taken part in by the port authorities of Ancona, where on April 28 there will be a presentation of the completed pilot project.
The project was initiated in 2012 and aims to come up with ways to improve the efficiency of Mediterranean ports, strengthening competitiveness against the large ports in Northern Europe. It focuses on the introduction of information technology making it possible to communicate quickly and to render procedures automatic.
The approach will be to monitor and understand what works and what instead creates congestion, find solutions and share best practices. To do this, Mednet will conduct analytical studies with pilot actions in ports that have partnered with the project, as well as talks and consultations with authorities.
On-site inspections at every port in the partnership will make it possible to assess the port and customs procedures, bottlenecks in port operations including connections with the inland, obstacles to procedure harmonization including ones related to customs, best practices and opportunities to simplify and conform processes.
As the project goes forward, an observatory for port operations in the Mediterranean will be decided on that will use a specialized database to understand technical parameters for port operations, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. The observatory will constitute a platform for communication at the European, national and regional level and will also serve to record and spread good practices.
Mednet is implemented by a partnership spanning the entire Mediterranean area with 18 partners from 11 countries: RAM and the Ancona and Taranto port authorities for Italy; the National Technical University of Athens, Igoumenitsa Port Authority and Patras Port Authority for Greece; the Center for Innovation in Transport and Valencia port Foundation for Spain; the Jonction and Marseille chamber of commerce for France; the Cyprus University of Technology; the Ljubljana Institute of Traffic and Transport for Slovenia; Consultores em Transportes Inovação e Sistemas (TIS) for Portugal; Transport Malta; Kip – Intermodal Transport Cluster and the Rijeka and Zara port authorities for Croatia; the Albanian transport institute and the Gibraltar customs agency for the UK.
There will be 12 pilot actions with a 6,155,540-euro budget to make Mediterranean ports more competitive.(ANSAmed).
