Three projects to transport Almeria's vegetables, by boat, to the markets of Netherlands, Italy and United Kingdom were presented during a meeting about the possibilities of transporting vegetables by sea held at the University of Almeria (UAL).
This meeting, organised with the collaboration of different institutional and business organizations of Almeria, presented viable transportation alternatives to the various agents of the logistics chain of the export sector of fruits and vegetables. As explained, these exporters want to find new sustainable transportation alternatives that will makes them more competitive and enable them to benefit from the advantages offered by maritime transport.
The president of the port authority, Trinidad Cabeo, who inaugurated the meeting accompanied by Diego Cano Martinez, President of the Foundation Bahía Almeriport and José Céspedes, the Chair of logistics of the UAL director and Dean of the Faculty of CC. Business, pointed out that it is important that the export sector of fruits and vegetables benefits from the advantages of intermodalitly, i.e., the combination of different transport routes to reach new markets.
Three logistics solutions projects for the Dutch, Italian and British markets were presented during the day. Several companies that currently perform these sea routes have explained the advantages of transporting merchandise by ship from the port of Almeria to the different European countries through the ports of Rotterdam, Genoa, Savona and Southampton.
One of the speakers at the conference, the Professor of Economics at UAL, José Ángel Aznar, pointed out that, for seven months, Almeria has enough production to consider maritime transport. Aznar explained that the traditional markets, namely Germany, France, the Netherlands and England, which are the main countries where fruits and vegetables from Almeria are exported to, have not changed in the last 15 years. Others, such as some Eastern European countries, are behaving dynamically and, since they are geographically further away, are more likely to be reached via shipping. This would include other markets such as Russia, Canada and the United States.
After the different presentations, entrepreneurs in the horticulture sector of Almeria had meetings with shipping companies Alveis Shipping, which makes the sea route to the Dutch market in storage, Grimaldi, that works with the Italian market, and Southampton Fruit Handling Ltd., which makes the sea route from Spanish ports to the South of England in refrigerated ships.
Source: Teleprensa
