Abu Dhabi: The World Ports and Trade Summit 2013 (WPTS) will begin on March 19-20 where participants will be exchanging information on a key networking platform for the maritime industry, said Captain Mohammad Al Shamsi, Executive Vice-President, Ports, ADPC (Abu Dhabi Ports Company), and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Terminals, in an interview with Gulf News.
“The WPTS 2013 will be under the patronage of Shaikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court with new additions that include four awards for companies and one personality award,” said Al Shamisi.
The company awards include environment and sustainability, safety and security, efficiency and innovation, explained Al Shamsi.
“The summit is a dynamic scene-setting which provides a platform for high level debate and discussion for the promotion of trade development, supply chain management and port efficiency,” he added.
Al Shamsi pointed out that the WPTS is very important for ADPC as it ensures meeting with customers, service providers and logistics supply chain as experts will analyse the changing dynamics of seaborne trade development and discuss critical issues pertaining to increased ship size and the cascade and their effects on intra-regional and international trading patterns.
Gulf News: What was the idea of being a setting for such a summit?
Captain Mohammad Al Shamsi: We have noticed in past few years that there is a big interest in the business side of the summit. The strategy we will use this year will be focusing more on the conference side rather than the exhibition. Next, year we will be focusing on both as we are considering holding it at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec).
It is a platform to meet with decision makers in terms of maritime industry and ports under one roof to discuss all issues from legislation perspective, to commercial point of view to means of serving customers better.
How about the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH) gathering in Abu Dhabi this year?
This meeting of the IAPH is back to Abu Dhabi after 12 years. The last time the IAPH was in Abu Dhabi was 12 years ago and it happens every year in a country and we worked on this last time to attract the IAPH back to Abu Dhabi and we succeeded. It will be on March 18 and will be a closed in meeting. Therefore, the big achievement is to bring the IAPH in line with the WPTS where high officials, CEOs and executive directors are taking part of all ports of the world, particularly from Asia and Sub-Asian continent.
How many countries will be taking part in the WPTS?
We expect from most of the world. This year there is more interest in the summit which is taking an edge as people had it on their calendars. The other edge this year is to grant awards to international candidates.
What will make this summit distinguished?
The nucleus for world economic growth and growing geopolitical influence continues to shift east, this summit is very important for us in the Gulf region. Therefore, we will having a meeting on March 20, the third meeting in this regard, to cooperate particularly at this stage when trade is shifting from Europe to Asia and to intra-Asia and Africa. We will discuss how GCC states can play a bigger role together.
We will be talking about cruise business in the Gulf. The cruise business is growing and there is a need to offer a better solution as we are complementing each other rather than competing with each other.
What will be the main topics of the WPTS?
New global realities exacerbated by the global economic crisis started to present many critical challenges to governments, policy makers and business leaders have to discuss such issues of mutual concern under one roof. Amongst the topics will be the maritime and port Development in the new global and economic era and port infrastructure, equipment, operational and challenges.
Who are the main speakers?
There are many speakers including Dr Sultan Ahmad Al Jaber, Chairman, Abu Dhabi Ports Company, Sultan Saeed Nasser Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, Jamal Majid Bin Thaniah, Group CEO, Port and Free Zone World, Non-Executive Vice Chairman, DP World, UAE and Grant Gilfillan, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Sydney Ports Corporation and First Vice President of IAPH.
How is cruise business nowadays?
Cruise businesses go across the Gulf region, mainly from Oman to UAE and Bahrain. Qatar might enter the cruise business map and Kuwait will also follow to some extent. That is why we have to meet as GCC to collaborate more for serving cruise industry.
What is the status of Mina Zayed now?
We are very busy in terms of business at Mina Zayed. We are refocusing on Mina Zayed to become a cruise hub or businesses. We will have the permanent location for the cruise business from next season. The cruise ships will be in the permanent location. We are master planning the cruise terminal to develop a permanent cruise terminal to the permanent location.
Last season which started from October to April/May 2012, about 156,000 passengers were going through Mina Zayed. This season of 2013 it is expected that the number will rise to 165,000 passengers because Mina Zayed will grow. One of the shipping lines, namely MSC, will use Mina Zayed as a hub.
How about RORO businesses at Mina Zayed?
This is an exciting business. If you look outside you will notice that there are many vehicles coming on deck to Abu Dhabi.
RORO saw the highest increase in growth with movements up significantly at 41.4 per cent, from 56,510 units to 79,906 units; marine activity saw a 13.8 per cent increase, up from 26,899 to 30,618 vessel calls, over the previous year.
General bulk and cargo, for all ports operated by ADPC, saw a throughput of 9.4m tonnes, an increase of 8.7 per cent on that handled in 2011.
Depsite the knock-on effects to maritime trade, from the global economy’s slowdown in recent years, Abu Dhabi ports saw a 2.5 per cent rise in container handling, up from 767,713 to 787,048 TEUs, for that 12 month period.
Mina Zayed is a destination and not a hub.
What is the status of Khalifa Port since its launch in December 2012?
Khalifa Port, which has the 2.5m TEU (initial) capacity, deep-water port, went operational from September 1, 2012, now handles all container shipments into and out of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. We passed the transition period which is the most critical period for us. We managed it successfully. Now our main focus is to open a direct destination from and to Khalifa Port. We signed with Messina Line few days ago as they will take Khalifa Port as their home port. We started connections with Africa, Asia, Europe and in the coming weeks we will be announcing new destinations and shipping lines that will serve Abu Dhabi directly. This is the big shift. Now Khalifa Port has started to transform quickly into being a hub port.
It is expected that the number of containers to be handled by Khalifa Port to surpass the significant milestone figure of one million TEUs (standard twenty-foot equivalent container unit) per annum, later this year.
Are there new shipping lines?
We are working on all fronts. In line with 2030, our sustained capabilities within industry, we managed to diversify our resources. Ships in the past used to come to our ports loaded and return empty and now they come loaded and leave loaded too with UAE products from Emal, Emirates Steel and Borouge as well as others to the world.
