The President of the Association of Exporters of Fruits of Chile AG, Asoex, Ronald Bown, spoke about the vision that the export sector of fresh fruit from Chile had at the seminar: "Challenges for an integrated vision of the maritime and port industry", organized by the Maritime and Port Chamber of Chile A.G. (CAMPORT). In his speech, Bown stressed the need of having stronger and more operational institutions.
The event was held in the Conference Center of SOFOFA and was headed by the Minister of transport and telecommunications, Andrés Gómez-Lobo; the Undersecretary of the Treasury, Alejandro Micco; the director of Maritime Interests and Aquatic environment, Otto Mrugalski; the President of the Maritime and Port Chamber, Jorge Marshall; and the President of SOFOFA, Hermann von Múhlenbrock. In addition, the event was attended by Ricardo Mewes, President of the National Chamber of Commerce; Guillermo Campero, Senior Advisor for OIT Public Policy and Álvaro Díaz, President of the Port Innovation and Logistics Sector, belonging to the National Council on innovation for development, CNID.
The participants carried out a systemic diagnosis of the current state of the maritime and port sector, from its own sector and from the role it plays within the port process chain, opening the discussion to give a new impetus to the development of the sector.
In this field, Ronald Bown said, that the industry had performed all the tasks related to the demands and requirements made by the buyers of Chilean fresh fruit, in a climate where competition from new countries has grown significantly.
In this regard, Bown spoke of tasks such as: having good agricultural and manufacturing practices that can be certified internationally, good labour practices and programs of Corporate Social responsibility, which meant the training of more than 200,000 workers and certifying the skills of more than 14,000 people. As well as having the Fruit Table, composed of businessmen, representatives of the public sector and workers, which discussed and analysed the issues of the industry to find better solutions. In addition to boosting port modernization, through the law, among other measures.
"Each of these actions has allowed us, as a sector, to have a prominent place at an international level, both in importance and reliability, and to increase our exports", said the leader of the fruit exporters.
However, he added: "all this effort seems to fade out when we must absorb undeserved costs, product of an institutional framework that has not fully functioned. In recent years the port strikes have severely affected the value of our exports and the confidence on our importers throughout the world".
The President of Asoex celebrated the implementation, by the Government, of the Presidential Commission on innovation of ports and logistics, which has created great expectations and that is expected to end with the implementation of specific measures that translate into administrative and legislative reforms for the short, medium and long term.
In this sense, Ronald Bown said that there were actions within the framework of this Committee which should move forward, as certain issues were strategic and urgent, such as the standardization of rates, transparency in the definition of customs services, clearly defining the port authority's framework for action, the need for a basic framework for all ports in relevant disciplines, consolidating and giving the logistics forums, like Valparaíso and San Antonio forums, specific functions as those experiences were positive, improving port security, and analysing in depth the issue and convenience of having a large-scale port eventually.
In turn, Jorge Marshall, President of CAMPORT, said: "we are convinced that this country will need to double its capacity to mobilize load in the next 15 years, otherwise, we will have a bottleneck in the maritime port and logistics sector. This is a major work, because we are facing major challenges, such as: larger ships, cities with other demands, as well as the need to solve and leave behind the conflict with the workers." Our idea is to consider increasing the mobilization of the load, in a different, new and more complex scenario, and that's why we are gathered here to share our visions."
Regarding the labour issue and the resolution of conflicts, Marshall agreed with the Presiden of Asoex, it is necessary to have stronger and better-defined institutions. "Much of the conflicts that have occurred have been outside the institutional framework, therefore, we have several challenges regarding employment relationships. The first one is to install a long-term agenda with the workers. We make our proposals, but we must also listen to their ideas, and we will have meetings on that subject on Saturday in Bío-Bío and on Monday in Valparaiso, to let them know our vision and collect theirs, and from there find a schedule that will allow us to work together."