The ports of Barcelona and Tarragona participated in the Spanish-Morrocan meeting held in Tangier last week with the aim of increasing their traffic with North Africa. The Catalan ports handled just over one million tonnes throughout 2014; the same figure recorded two years before by the two enclaves together. In the case of the Port of Barcelona, the visit to Morocco was prioritized to promote its offer of short sea shipping and its strategic position for traffic between Morocco and Europe. The port authority delegation was accompanied by the director of the European School of Short Sea Shipping, Eduard Rodés, who presented the training offer in logistics and intermodal transport they currently provide. Meanwhile, the commercial director of the Port of Barcelona, Rosa Puig, held a series of bilateral meetings with various transport companies and Moroccan exporters and importers to explain the supply of logistics services offered by the Port of Barcelona. Currently, this Catalan enclave and Tangier are connected by six container, four vehicleand three weekly short sea shipping services. All in all, in 2014 a total of 780,338 tonnes, 8.2% more than recorded in 2013, was transported. Of the total goods transported, 460,653 tonnes were loaded, 142,481 unloaded and 177,203 in transit.
As for the main Moroccan ports Barcelona operated with, most traffic was concentrated in the port of Casablanca, with 562,553 tonnes handled; but also in the ports of Tanger Med and Agadir, with 85,946 and 55,796 tonnes respectively.
PORT OF TARRAGONA
With regard to the participation of the port of Tarragona in the business meeting in Morocco, the Port authority chose to present its intermodal strategy and integrated logistics services. The Director of Corporate Development, Joan Basora, and the head of the Customer Management division, Pedro Bernal, held business meetings with Moroccan horticulture and automotive industries as well as with shipping companies, carriers, freight forwarders and shipping agents. Currently, the port of Tarragona has commercial lines with the Moroccan enclave of Tanger Med and with Casablanca, with which it maintains relations of export and import of general cargo, containers, crude oil and other petroleum products as well as bulk solids. Specifically, the enclave moved a total of 284,620 tonnes during 2014, representing a decrease of 38.6% compared to the total recorded in 2013. This reduction is caused by a decrease in crude oil traffic over the last year. Still, the general cargo transported to Moroccan enclaves increased almost 200% in the last year, from handling 9,651 tonnes in 2013 to a total of 28,939 tonnes in 2014. In all, the port of Tarragona handled 126,739 unloaded tonnes and 157,881 loaded tonnes with the ports.
Source: El Vigia
Photo: Jorge Franganillo/ flickr
