During the presentation of the Port of Barcelona’s new 2015-2020 Strategic Plan, the Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Santi Vila, advocated the need for the Port to have more freedom and greater autonomy in its activity and not be subjected to the State’s interventionism. Vila asserted that the Port of Barcelona’s competiveness is based on its autonomous activity, its capacity to have public/private partnerships and its capacity to “freely compete, without constrains, hindrances or interventions from other, less competitive, environments which haven’t always conducted their work efficiently”.

 

The Minister expressed that “Catalonia is the great standard-bearer for the liberalization of infrastructures, which is key for our economic recovery”. In this sense, Vila asked the State to not hinder the competitive freedom which exists between the ports and to abstain from implementing recentralizing measures which end up damaging the role of the Port of Barcelona as the engine of the Catalan economy. Vila also required the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport to follow through with its commitments and invest in the Port’s access because “it’s incomprehensible that the railway connection should not start by 2015”. “The Government of Catalonia and the Port of Barcelona have completed our part and now it is up to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to finish theirs”, added the Catalan Minister.

 

Santi Vila made these declarations during the presentation of the Port of Barcelona’s new Strategic Plan which Sixte Cambra, president of the Port of Barcelona, hosted this morning in the Maritime Museum of Barcelona. The Plan includes a proposal to increase the Port’s traffic, to increase its sphere of influence and to carry out various expansions through the principles of sustainability and competiveness. Ultimately, the plan outlines the necessary objectives in order for the Port of Barcelona to become the principle centre for euro-regional distribution in the Mediterranean and increase its traffic for the area’s economic growth.