Port accessThe Port Authority of Bilbao will present the Port of Bilbao’s multimodal and logistics advances along with its new infrastructures and its digitalisation, innovation and environmental projects from stand D-410 at the SIL in Barcelona, to be held from 26-28 June.
Bilbao is a multi-purpose port with the experience and the terminals for all cargo classes among which there are terminals for perishable and frozen goods and the container terminal with the greatest depth in the Iberian Peninsula. This is precisely the terminal managed by CSP Iberian Bilbao Terminal belonging to the Cosco Shipping Ports (Spain) group which has extended its rail terminal and now has four 550-metre long tracks. In addition, it has become the first terminal in Spain to comply with all the requirements of the new European Union Customs Code (UCC) due to now being a temporary customs warehouse within the import circuit and without losing competitiveness.
Information will also be provided about the advances in other terminals and the stevedoring companies (Bergé Marítimas Bilbao, Consignaciones Toro y Betolaza and Servicios Logísticos Portuarios); and the dry ports at Pancorbo (Burgos) and Arasur (Alava). The former is nearly 50 hectares in size and has a fitted out 60,000 square metre-area and a rail terminal. Improvements have also been made in intermodality. Rail-port traffic increased by 12% in 2018 and by 65% in the last six years.
Furthermore, by the beginning of next year, the Port of Bilbao will have 334,000 new square metres and 1,081 metres of berthing available for business projects within the first phase of the Central Pier. The first phase supposes a 79 million-euro investment to which the European Commission will contribute 20% of the award costs, as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. In this sense, in May this year, occupancy taxes were reduced in order to make Bilbao a more competitive port. This initiative joins the one already in force since July 2018 which lowered Goods Tax (T3) by 10%, thus bringing about an additional saving of 1.2 million euros for the customers and users of the Port of Bilbao in 2018.
With regard to innovation, Bilbao has advanced in the improvement of its electronic administration, and in July, it will have an Innovation and Research Hub to boost in order to promote the competition launched in the State Ports Funds 4.0 call. With this centre, the Port Authority wishes to boost a climate of innovation in the Port, and encourage companies and start-ups in the port environment to identify ideas and projects for this first call.
Another advance to point out, this time in the environmental field, is that Bilbao has become the first port in the world to obtain the Environmental Product Declaration, which is based on the analysis of the life cycle of the Port’s services. The EPD international certificate is the fruit of the cooperation among some fifty companies belonging to the Bilbao Port Community – of all kinds and of different classes of traffic and/or services, and sets out the environmental impacts of the Port’s activities.
