The Spanish Port Investors Platform was pleased to announce the incorporation of First State as a partner in the Meeting held this week.

With the welcome to the new partner -the infrastructure fund with clear investing interests in Spain, after the acquisition of the Vopak Algeciras terminal and the terminals of Amsterdam, Hamburg and Rotterdam forming the EVOS group, -, PIPE continues in the line of consolidation as a benchmark in the port sector in Spain.

In this sense, José Luis Almazán, executive vice president of PIPE, wanted to congratulate FIRST STATE with the most sincere congratulations «for its decision to get involved in the decisions and debates of the main association of investment companies in Spanish ports». In this way, continues Almazán «we continue to open the stage where we will accommodate companies that share interests and objectives with operators and terminal operators who, in a traditional way, have already been part of PIPE».

At the PIPE Board, where the economic impact that the Covid19 crisis has caused in port companies, operators and terminal operators has been analyzed in depth, the planned actions have been launched and that had to be postponed due to the arrival of the coronavirus to Spain. Thus, in the line of continuing to consolidate itself as the leading platform that brings together port companies with powerful investments in Spanish ports, PIPE has resumed the roadmap for the coming months.

The need to reduce port charges, with a structural and non-temporary nature, the convenient speeding up of the extension of concession terms, as well as the interest in deepening the debate on port governance, continue to be the three pillars where PIPE’s action is going to focus on the next few weeks. PIPE, in its immediate action, intends to make its proposals reach the government and parliamentary groups, in line with the measures taken to alleviate the negative effects of Covid19 in the maritime port sector, in order to achieve greater competitiveness and thus transfer to the real economy the development of the port system and its positive impact in terms of GDP and job creation. For this, the need to reduce costs of the passage of goods through the ports, becomes a priority.

We must continue to insist on the fact that ports act as true dynamizers of the economy in Spain and guarantee the development of the business fabric, with which the objective of improving their competitiveness and reducing costs will mean an improvement in competitive capacity of exporting and importing companies.

At a critical moment for the Spanish economy, port companies, which function as thermometers of the same, cannot remain oblivious to the measures to reactivate the economic recovery.