PORT OF TARANTO, 22 March 2023 The plenary event dedicated to the drafting of the Three-Year Operational Plan (POT) 2023-2025 of the Port Network Authority of the Ionian Sea (AdSPMI), to be adopted by next April, was held this morning in the conference hall of the Dipartimento Jonico in "Sistemi Giuridici ed Economici del Mediterraneo: società, ambiente, culture" of the University of Bari - Taranto Campus.
AdSPMI has recently initiated preparations for the definition of the strategic planning underlying the new POT for the three-year period 2023-2025, through the identification of a new set of actions for the development of port and logistics activities, in line with the provisions of Italian Law 84/94. With this in mind, the Authority has partnered with TIM10 Srl, an independent company with expertise in the fields of logistics and transport whose interdisciplinary work team includes international experts from the PortEconomics group (porteconomics.eu).
The Port Network Authority has agreed today to hold a plenary event for its stakeholders as part of a broader stakeholder engagement cycle, promoted as a policy-making tool aimed at the participatory construction of the Authority's key document. This is with a view to planning the institutional, strategic, organisational and operational conduct of the Authority over a three-year period, also through dialogue and listening to the opinions and needs of the port-city community.
The proceedings were opened by the Director of the Dipartimento Jonico, Prof. Paolo Pardolesi, who welcomed the audience of stakeholders, followed by the welcome message on behalf of the Municipality of Taranto by the Councillor for Urban Planning and Investee Companies, Francesca Viggiano. Along with the port cluster, the event was also attended by numerous students already involved in the dissemination of port and maritime culture implemented by AdSPMI over the last three years.
President Sergio Prete introduced the workshop by illustrating the path that the Authority wishes to undertake for the construction of the new POT, highlighting the fact that the meeting today represents an important stage towards the finalisation of the strategic document that will, among other things, incorporate the results of a special survey of port stakeholders to gather the opinions of this network, to whom is entrusted a significant weight in the port's new development strategies.
The presentation of the drafting and construction of the Authority’s new POT was entrusted to a team of experts including: 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; and George Vaggelas, Partner and consultant at 'Ports and Shipping Advisory' and researcher at the 'Shipping, Trade and Transport' Department of the University of the Aegean.
The activities were coordinated by Giovanni Satta, Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management at the Department of Economics (DIEC) of the University of Genoa (UNIGE) and head of the TIM10 team of consultants.
The draft Plan - which will be presented following approval by the Management Committee in April - will provide an analysis of the renewed operational context of the Port of Taranto, its positioning and the overall framework of port governance. Other sections of the document will cover the PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Ecological, Legal) analysis including the assessment of macro-environmental variables, the SWOT analysis of the Port of Taranto, the construction of the Port Manifesto (mission and strategic objectives of the Authority) and, finally, the definition of AdSPMI’s development agenda for the three-year period 2023-2025.