Two hundred delegates, including many of Europe’s senior port and shipping executives, gathered for the Annual European Shipping Congress at Dublin Castle, today (29th, June 2010) to discuss the current state of the European Shortsea shipping and port sector.
The event, which was organised by the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) was formally opened by Minister Ciaran Cuffe, Minister of State at the Department of Transport. The theme of the Congress was “strategies and opportunities for recovery in European Shortsea Shipping”.
Speaking at the conference Mr Fran Dodd, Logistics Manager of the Irish Dairy Board said "Competitive shortsea shipping has been fundamental to our success and is fundamental to our future" IDB export 100% of their products, including Kerrygold brand to over 80 countries worldwide.
Major Irish exporting companies such as Irish Dairy Board, Wellman International and Rusal, (the worlds largest alumina and aluminium producer with a major facility in on the Shannon Estuary), all provided key note papers on their perspective for export led recovery.
“This year’s congress is taking place at a time when the industry is still concerned about the pace and fragility of the recovery in the European economic zone, said IMDO Director Glenn Murphy. “The European shipping sector has endured a highly turbulent 18 months which has seen shipping demand and port throughput fall right across Europe. This has resulted in most market segments having to deal with capacity issues and falling freight rates. The Congress appears optimistic but still highly cautious of the volatile nature of the recovery path for the sector”
In his opening address Minister Cuff welcomed that Ireland had become a recognised location where leaders from across Europe now come to regularly discuss key shipping and port issues. ”I am particularly pleased to note that, although issues such as cost and capacity where very much to the fore of the industry agenda, highly important areas such as climate change and vessel emissions were also being debated at the congress,” he said. The European Shipping Congress is now scheduled to be held in Ireland every alternate year and is scheduled to return in 2012 after being hosted in Germany in 2011.
ENDS
For further information, please contact: Mairead Ni Cheoinin,
Marketting & Business Programme Coordinator - IMDO
+353 874107880
email: marketing@imdo.ie
or
Dr John Joyce, Communications Manager, Marine Institute.
Tel: +353 (0) 87 2250871
Notes to Editor
The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) is hosting the 3rd European Shortsea Congress (ESC) in Dublin Castle on 29th and 30th June 2010.
This ESC is Europe’s largest gathering of Shortsea shipping professionals and senior executives representing bulk & unitised operators and owners, Europe’s leading ports & terminals, shippers, receivers, logistics facilitators and the full range of professional service providers.
The European Union is highly dependent on the maritime transport, 90% of Europe’s external trade and more than 40% of its internal trade goes by sea; on the whole nearly 2 billion tons of freight are loaded and unloaded EU ports each year; maritime companies belonging to European Union nationals control nearly 40% of the world fleet; the majority of EU trade is carried on vessels controlled by EU interests.
Similarly, Ireland as an island trading economy is highly dependent on Shortsea shipping. 100% of our container and unitised traffic is carried via intra-European Shortsea services. The majority of major companies operating and established in Ireland are of European origin. We estimate about €110 billion euro of traded merchandise goods were carried by Irish Shortsea operators in 2009 making it a valuable and important element of our transport network. The sectors ability to organise itself and respond to the recent National emergency arising from the volcanic ash crisis underlines the strategic importance of our shipping corridors.