Approval of the new THREE-YEAR OPERATIONAL PLAN 2023-2025

PORT OF TARANTO, 7 APRIL 2023 - The new Three-Year Operational Plan (POT) 2023-2025 of the Port Network Authority of the Ionian Sea (AdSPMI) was approved by the Management Committee with Resolution No. 04/2023 of 6 April 2023. This is the policy paper required by the current regulations of the Italian Port Network. It is aimed at planning, over a three-year period, the institutional management - strategic, organisational and operational - of the Port Network Authority (AdSP). The full document is available for download at the link below.

The new Three-year Operational Plan is the result of the fruitful collaboration between in-house team of the Port Network Authority of the Ionian Sea and TIM10 Srl, an independent company with expertise in the logistics and transport sectors whose interdisciplinary working group includes international experts from the web-based academic initiative PortEconomics (porteconomics.eu), among whom are Theo Notteboom, Chair Professor at Ghent University, Co-founder and Co-director of PortEconomics ;Thanos Pallis, Professor of Port & Maritime Economics and Policy at the University of Piraeus; George Vaggelas, Partner and Consultant at Ports and Shipping Advisory and Researcher at the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport of the University of the Aegean ; and Giovanni Satta, Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management at the Department of Economics (DIEC) of the University of Genoa (UNIGE), the latter being in charge of the TIM10 external advisory team. The group of experts provided, in particular, strategic and specialist support in the analysis of economic, geopolitical and social dynamics (cf. PESTEL Analysis) concerning the theme of maritime and logistic-port transport in relation to the Port of Taranto.

On 22 March the Authority had reserved for the community of the Taranto port city an initial plenary briefing dedicated to the new Three-year Operational Plan, revealing its stakeholders the main elements that will characterize the Authority's policy strategy for the next three years (Link: https://bit.ly/3mhK5kH). The strategic design underlying the new Plan envisages 6 priority objectives - Business Intelligence & Digital Operations, Sustainability and Ecological and Energy Transition, Port and Territory, Physical and Logistic Infrastructure, Internationalisation, Governance & Accountability - organised into 23 actions identified by the Authority in order to promote the broadest sustainability of processes and actions in the medium-and long term, also through the promotion of integrated inclusive policies as elements to increase trust and institutional accountability.

A central element of the document approved yesterday is the SWOT analysis and the use of the TOWS matrix, which contributed to collecting key information for the determining the mission for the next three years. This methodology - reflected in the Port Manifesto - is based on the feedback gathered in focus group discussions with key port operators and on the results of questionnaires administered to stakeholders from the Taranto port community. Chapter V of the Three-year Operational Plan examines the mission and strategic objectives of the Port Network Authority, which have emerged as interesting opportunities for development and implementation, in line with the results of the SWOT/TOWS analysis. Specifically, the TOWS matrix has made it possible to identify options that relate to a different combination of endogenous factors (strengths and weaknesses) and exogenous factors (opportunities and threats). This is with a view to offering a both objective and strategic key to understanding the competitiveness elements at the centre of the new Plan drafted by the Authority, a key that is also in line with the development prospects of the Ionian Port Network.

"The path taken towards the Authority's new Three-year Operational Plan", President Sergio Prete said, "has certainly benefited from what the Authority had already capitalised on in the previous three-year period, during which the Port Network Authority carried out its institutional mission by promoting initiatives and projects that have opened up the Port to different and renewed scenarios and new governance approaches. Looking ahead to the new three-year period, the Port Network Authority, also taking into account the progressive reduction of industrial traffic, will continue its resolute action aimed at creating public value, thus contributing to creating new opportunities and initiatives and intercepting every element capable of sustaining growth opportunities, not only in terms of economic development but also in the energy-environmental and technological domains, with the consequent social, cultural and tourism effects”.