Untitled - Ministerstwo Rozwoju Regionalnego

for a limited time – in services for which there is a demand, obviously provided
that they are profitable for the port.
It is expected that seaports, together with cruise industry, aquaculture, renewable
energy, submarine telecommunications and marine biotechnology, will
become sectors with the greatest growth potential in the future 8 .
Maritime transport and ports are particularly important elements of logistic
chains, integrating national economies with the world economy. Their effectiveness
and efficiency is of primary importance for competitiveness in the globalising
world. Therefore, the commercial nature of activities remains the main feature
of seaports, as commercialisation trend makes it possible for seaports to extend
their scope of services. As for now, many seaports, Polish ones included, do
not conduct fully commercialised activities yet.
A contemporary seaport is still a transport node in the global transport system,
but primarily it is a link of the global logistic chain. After a period of growing
importance of ports as centres of creating added value, which was caused by
the rapid growth of containerisation, they were given a new scope of activities
by logistics. In recent years, ports have more and more often been developing as
logistics centres, and many of them offer logistic services directly within port areas
or in distribution/logistics centres situated in adjacent areas.
A basic challenge set by logistics is to shorten and speed up all the processes
of the flow of cargo, services and information at every stage of the supply chain.
A need to rationalise trade and development of ports as land/sea logistic centres
also results from higher demand of transport users for a larger scope of port logistics
services, and the large share of transport and storage costs in global logistic
costs.
Integrated logistic services are what is most expected, apart from transhipment,
from seaports in logistic supply chains. Many big forwarders in Europe,
the USA and Southeast Asia recognise the advantages of a larger logistic offer. It
can be stated that as for goods delivered within land/sea or inland chains (comparable
in terms of price and quality of delivery), the degree of logistic handling
in seaports is the main determinant of the competitiveness of the whole transport
chain, seaports included.
All big seaports have distribution/logistics centres. They function as huge,
independent functional and spatial structures or companies dispersed all over
port areas, rendering various logistic services. In other ports, e.g. in Polish ones,
such centres are being established quickly. Their task will be to organise and optimise
the distribution of export goods according to customers' requirements, to
store export/import and transit goods, to process certain goods, and to coordinate
the information chain for all the participants of land/sea supply chains.
8 Marine Industries Global Market Analysis, Douglas-Westwood Limited, Marine foresight series no 1.
289