Port of Gdańsk at EEC Trends and the international conference on the TEN-T Transeuropean Transport Network
“Sea ports must be oversized and they must operate in the stand-by mode, as they decide on the energy, military and food security for the country,” said Managing Director Łukasz Greinke at the EEC Trends conference.
EEC Trends is an event preceding the European Economic Congress held every year in Katowice. The debates on the world and the economy, with the participation of excellent guests, were held on February 6 in Warsaw. Łukasz Greinke, the Managing Director of the Port of Gdańsk took part in the “Infrastructure and Geopolitics” panel. Other participants of the discussion: Halina Brdulak, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Artur Martyniuk, President of Polregio, Rafał Miland, Vice-President of PERN, Krzysztof Niemiec, Vice-President of Track Tec and Artur Tomasik, President of the Polish Regional Airport Association. The speakers discussed the new trade routes, changes in supply chains and the planned and executed investments.
“We continue to be faced with the effects of closing a inland frontier due to Russia’s aggression on Ukraine. This situation has meant that ports with key meaning for the country’s economy have had to take over the volume of raw materials which previously arrived via inland routes. If it had not been for the port infrastructure we constructed, we would not have been able to handle the coal crisis,” said Managing Director Łukasz Greinke at the EEC Trends conference.
A week later, an international conference was held in Warsaw as part of the Carpathian Europe series on the redefinition of logistics chains in the light of the new TEN-T transport policy. The event was attended by European transport ministers, European Commission transport representatives, European coordinators of the TEN-T corridors passing through Poland, representatives of European railway infrastructure managers, European seaports, international financial institutions and national public administration officials.
Łukasz Greinke, the Managing Director of the Port of Gdansk participated in the panel dedicated to the role of sea ports in ensuring efficient logistic chains in the TEN-T network corridors. The discussion was attended by: Grzegorz Witkowski, Vice-Minister for Infrastructure, Julius Skačkauskas, Vice-Minister at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Communication (Lithuania), Anne Elisabet Jensen, European Coordinator for the Baltic–Adriatic Corridor, Eugene Seah, CEO of the Baku International Sea Trade Port and Daniel Jarnea of Konstanca Port.
“We continue to chase Europe. But we also notice that Port of Gdańsk is reaching its maximum handling capacity. This means that it is justified right now to continue developing and increasing our handling capacity by 20–30%. We must look toward the future in order to prepare new shores for our operators, to provide them with better conditions for how they act. Rotterdam is an exceptionally good benchmark for us, as they constructed Maasvlakte (land recovery) and upscaled their port. Port infrastructure must be prepared for various times. Just as we keep our military on stand-by, the same must happen with our ports. We need to respond exceptionally fast to changing market needs. When the war in Ukraine broke out, we as the Management Board of the Port of Gdańsk were certain that we must take the decision to harden additional stacking yards in order to be able to process the increased loads. This allowed us to achieve a 28% increase in handling for the year (68 million tonnes of goods). For this year, we are planning to receive 80 million tonnes. We have the opportunity to become a leader in the Baltic, but we are also coming close to the top ten European ports,” said Managing Director Łukasz Greinke.
Contact for the media:
Anna Drozd – spokesperson for the Port of Gdańsk
e-mail: anna.drozd@portgdansk.pl
tel.: (+48) 727 064 605
