Facing containerisation challenges

The most important subject raised at this year’s edition of the Baltic Container Conference was further development of containerisation in the Baltic Sea region. There is no doubt that containerization is the future of sea transport. For the last two days, the participants of BCC 2008 discussed how to face its development on the Baltic Sea.

The subject matter of the Baltic Container Conference 2008 was focused around the increasing trade exchange in containerised cargos on the Baltic Sea. In the last year, 1,000,000 more TEUs have arrived in the Baltic Sea. Containerisation in the Baltic Sea is developing at the world's fastest rate – Baltic’s rate of growth is 16%, while it is approx. 10% globally. The latest spectacular investments aimed at expanding terminals, e.g. examples of

green-field investments from Finland (Voussari), Poland (DCT), or Russia (Ust-Luga) presented at the conference are merely a response to the requirements of the market.

In the discussion, the issue of construction of a hub in the Baltic Sea was raised – an ocean port at which cargo from huge container ships could be trans-shipped onto smaller feeder vessels. The participants in the conference pointed to the growing congestion in the ports of the North Sea, which would be solved by locating a hub at one of the Baltic ports. It should be mentioned that for the representatives of DCT Gdansk, the question is not whether or not it will be built but rather when it will happen.

To live up to the demands of the market is not just to expand the existing and to build new container terminals but to invest in the ports’ infrastructural links. In the course of the discussion, the need to develop rail-transport-based intermodal systems was pointed to. In this way, the expected development of container transport will not overload road links, which is a weighty argument in the age of climate warm-up related risks of climatic changes.

The participants in the discussion did not forget that the container exchange system must become part of logistic delivery chains, which is accompanied by an intensification of information exchange. Accordingly, the latest computer systems were presented during the conference, such as gateway and operator systems in container terminals, which make the service easier and less time-consuming, and allow for the growing safety demands at the same time.

Baltic Container Conference has the potential to become a truly periodical event. This is proved by a great interest from participants. The conference is organized by Actia Conferences, a division of the Gdynia-based company Actia Forum operating in the field of organization of thematic business-branch conferences, in cooperation with the board of Morski Port Gdansk SA, as the main sponsor. A significant factor that is of consequence to the level and usefulness of the discussion is that its organizers attach a lot of weight to the

speakers being practitioners who are familiar with the container business specificity from everyday work. 150 representatives of transportation businesses, Baltic ports, container terminal operators, international maritime organizations and institutions took part in the conference.

Source: Transportweekly