Economic importance of the Flemish maritime ports: Report 2002

5.2 Prospects for the Flemish maritime ports 60Foreign trade is essential for Belgium, given that the equivalent of two-thirds of its GDP is exported. Moreover, theEuropean Union of the 15 relies on the sea for 90 p.c. of its foreign trade and for 43 p.c. of its domestic trade.Total VA for companies in the four ports and their supplier chains (sum of the direct and indirect effects) generallyfollows the development in foreign trade.In relation to the previous two years’ levels, exports and imports increased very slightly in 2002. However, this didnot affect the production level of the companies under review very much despite the correlation between importsand exports and that of the VA of the companies in the study (maritime and non-maritime).The development of the ports is in response to evolutions in foreign trade and their knock-on effect on maritimetransport. Political events and technological developments have an impact on transport, on maritime andcontinental trade and, consequently, on port activities.The economic environment of the ports is marked by an expansion in world trade, along with a growing dispersionof its centres through the internationalisation of production and consumption models and through new transportand distribution requirements. Production, trade and transport are now integrated into a single system. In thiscontext, port activities are no longer restricted to the loading and unloading of vessels: the ports are turning intologistics centres that combine the business lines of production, trade and transport. It is by adapting to this newstructure of international trade that the ports are likely to play an active role in trade expansion.This new role for ports can be seen through an analysis of foreign trade and the transport chain. The latter beginsat the site of production of raw materials or semi-finished products and continues until the finished productreaches its final destination. In order to rationalise all the activities involved in this process and minimise overallcosts, a logistics approach has to be adopted.For each product, operations ought to be carried out where:o the cheapest production factor is available;o a minimum of « downtime » is necessary;o a minimum of transportation is required;o the product can be manufactured in the largest quantities.It is within this context that projects such as IPG in Ghent or PortConnect in Zeebrugge are relevant, becausethey enable improvements to be made in the transportation of goods to other ports and the interior of the country,combining various modes of transport. IPG is an example of a project capable of resulting in a multimodal hub(see annex 9).The notion of « Value Added Logistics » (VAL) is also involved. Ports capable of adding value to the goodspassing through them possess a major asset in a context of ever-increasing global competition. The « Naties » ofAntwerp and Zeebrugge ports play this role completely, since these companies increasingly combine storageactivities (bulk or general cargo, hazardous or controlled temperature goods), and activities with a high valueadded (assembly, packaging, labelling, quality control, route planning, tracking and tracing, customs clearance,etc.). It is a question of « business » type logistics, and this comprises two dimensions: materials managementand their physical distribution from place of production to final consumer.In order to develop, the ports must offer sufficient storage space close to the terminals. The warehouses must, tothe extent of available resources, be adapted to meet the very stringent monitoring requirements. The overlandtransport infrastructure also needs to be developed. Given all these challenges, the approach will need to bemore commercial than in the past. Concrete answers must be found at the level of infrastructure (vessel access)and superstructure (cranes, warehouses, etc.) facilities, whilst ensuring compliance with increasingly strictEuropean environmental standards.All stakeholders agree on the prime objective of all these policies: to minimise the costs of cargo transit whilstmaximising value added. This policy requires, among other things, economies of scale. The port of Antwerp hasthus set itself the objective of passing the 140 million tonne mark of cargo transhipped per annum. Ostend isrelying heavily on improving its maritime access which should, following renovation of its outer port and60See, among others: « Port Marketing », Maritiem Instituut - Universiteit Gent (1998).70 NBB WORKING PAPER No.56 - JUNE 2004