PORT AUTHORITY | Chairman

PORT AUTHORITY 
Chairman 
Ricardo Barkala
In a world where we have learnt that almost nothing is permanent, with geopolitical, health and economic earthquakes, it is gratifying to see that in the port of Bilbao, we have been able to reinvent ourselves, and if the word resiliency can be applied to any group, the Port community is one of them. This newsletter is an example of this, as well as the best notary of what has been happening these last years in the main port of the Atlantic axis.
A cursory look at the last quarter of a century will show how much we have changed, although our essence, being at the service of companies, remains the same. We work together to improve the competitiveness of our port and promote it. Thus, we have managed to achieve a 21st-century port, agile, flexible, at the service of the hinterland and, above all, with great professionals.

In these last 25 years, the port of Bilbao has experienced quantitative and qualitative changes. On the one hand, in 1998 we were opening the first phase of the enlargement,  and now we are finishing that enlargement. In 1998, we did not have an industrial area, and today, this area is complete, with strategic companies such as the regasification plant, which opened in 2003, and soon the synthetic fuel plant. In these last years, we have become an energy-logistic industrial hub in constant evolution.

Analysing the evolution of traffic, we can observe that we move all types of goods and ships, with 900 ports all over the world. Traffic and ships as diverse as liquid bulk (petroleum derivatives, gas, chemical products…), solid bulk (scrap metal, grain, cement…), general goods, containers, Ro-Ro traffic, cruise liners, project cargo, large wind turbine elements…. In short, a  reflection of our hinterland’s the evolution and the needs and requirements of our clients. 
We have also taken a great leap forward in digitalization, innovation and sustainability and thus, we have placed the free electronic platform e-portbilbao at the service of companies, making us a paper-free port, our companies are full of innovation, and sustainability is present in everything we do, in its three aspects: Environmental, social and economic, and we are going to follow the route we have begun to be an example, a “green port”. In this evolution, we must finally mention social peace, transparency and openness of citizenship to be well-known and recognised. 
The activities of the port of Bilbao contribute 8% of the GDP of the Basque Country and 17% of that of  Bizkaia, and we provide 5,000 direct and indirect jobs, all result of the effort of a port community that has told how this was achieved in one hundred newsletters.

 
We continue progressing and reporting on it.