Spanish ports have committed to designing and implementing common strategies, following Maersk’s announcement to abandon the port of Algeciras in favor of Tanger Med. A decision which could encourage other shipping companies to prefer the Moroccan port to their detriment, they fear. It is for this reason that those responsible for the seven Andalusian ports deemed it appropriate to join forces to “confront” Tanger Med, relays The Debate.
Read: Maersk abandons Algeciras for the port of Tanger Med
“We are not competing, we are collaborating, because our competitors are in the north of Morocco and the north of Europe,” said the president of the port of Cádiz, Teófila Martínez, during a forum on the economy Andalusian held in Almeria. In the same vein, the president of the Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras (Cádiz), Gerardo Landaluce, insisted on the need to involve the central and regional administration to give a “definitive impetus” to the materialization of the projects to modernize ports and improve their rail and road connectivity.
“We need to network. The localist approach is absolutely outdated. Customers are looking for complementarity in their logistics operations,” added Landaluce. The port of Huelva aspires to become a “reference in Europe” in terms of the production of “green hydrogen” or “green ethanol”, assured its president, Alberto Santana, inviting the government to support this dynamic through incentives. tax.
-Read: Tangier Med crushes Spanish ports
The collaboration “will make us much stronger,” added the president of the port of Seville, Rafael Carmona. Along the same lines, Carlos Rubio, president of the port of Malaga, indicated that Andalusian ports have moved from “fierce” competition to “cooperation” with initiatives aimed at having a railway platform. “We are trying to ensure that Andalusia becomes, from a logistical point of view, a first-level international platform.”
The president of the port of Motril (Granada), José García Fuentes, announced that he is working on the creation of a marina with a commercial area, to attract cruise ships. “We are the closest port to the Spanish capital in the south of the peninsula,” he observed. The port of Almeria, the second largest after that of Algeciras, is not left out. Rosario Soto, the president of the port authority, recalled that one million passengers passed through her port as part of Operation Marhaba 2024, or 200,000 more than in 2023, emphasizing the importance of this port for traffic to Morocco.
