SSG No 20 - Shipgaz

LEif HanSSon
Major shake-up
at the horizon
The Emma Mærsk calls at the Skandia terminal in the largest port of Scandinavia, Göteborg.
The centre-right government in Sweden
has initiated what could become
a major shake-up of the ports and
maritime infrastructure sector. A recently
published report has identified ten of
Sweden’s over 50 public ports as being of
strategic importance for the nation. The
selection was based on the following criteria:
cargo turnover, existing infrastructure,
environment promotion, safety and security,
development potential and cooperation
with other port operators.
Sweden
Based on this, the following ports were
selected: Göteborg with its partners in
West Sweden Seaports Uddevalla and
Varberg, Helsingborg, Malmö, Trelleborg,
Karlshamn together with Karlskrona, Norrköping,
Kapellskär, Gävle, Sundsvall and
Luleå that has formed an alliance with
Piteå and Skellefteå called North Sweden
Seaports.
These ports handles more than half of
the total cargo turnover in Swedish ports
and they are to be given priority in the
state planning process for development of
land based infrastructure for cargo transportation.
According to the report, the Swedish
Maritime Administration should be
responsible for all fairway development and
maintenance also in these ports. The ports
should also be given an improved pilot
service with a reduction of the maximum
waiting time from five hours to three.
In return, the selected ports should agree
to be public, accessible 24 hours, seven
days a week, participate in regional agreements
on sea and land based infrastructure
and actively develop measures to reduce
environmental impact.
Larger investments ahead
An annual survey carried out by the Swedish
Maritime Administration shows that
planned direct investments in ports and in
road and railway infrastructure connections
will be close to SEK 12.5 billion (EUR 1.4
billion) in the period 2007–2011. This is 25
per cent higher than in the 2005 survey.
Another investigation of improved pilot
services has been given a wider scope. It will
also investigate the current organisation of
the Swedish Maritime Administration and
PoRTS & MaRiTiME LoGiSTiCS
all its functions. This could lead to privatisation
of parts of the administration’s current
tasks. The investigation will also look
into the financing of the administration.
Today, fairway dues paid by the vessels calling
ports in Sweden finance this.
The state should do
what it is best at
and do it effectively.
“The state should do what it is best at and
do it effectively, and there are activities carried
out by the Swedish Maritime Administration
today, that could be handled by
other actors”, says state secretary at the
Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications
Leif Zetterberg to SSG.
The Swedish society is highly dependent
on maritime transport. A total of 104,313
vessel calls were registered last year in
Swedish ports, corresponding to twelve
calls each hour the year around. The trend
with a decrease in the number of calls but
by larger vessels continues. The absolute
SCanDinaVian SHiPPinG GaZETTE • oCToBER 26, 2007 69