The ports in Gothenburg, Århus and Tallinn will now receive EUR 24.8 million in funding for a collaborative venture that will ensure cost-effective and environmentally smart sea transport for industry in Scandinavia and the Baltic region. In brief, the model has been designed in a way that the Port of Århus and the Port of Gothenburg will be reinforced as transshipment ports for the whole region. Both ports would become hubs for transport to and from Asia. A great deal of the transshipment that currently takes place at the large continental ports can take place here instead. Collaboration with other ports in the Baltic region will be intensified. The model offers significant benefits. By viewing the whole of Scandinavia and the Baltic region as one single market, it will be of greater interest to shipping companies to have direct routes from here. Pressure on the large ports on the continent, such as Hamburg and Rotterdam, would be relieved and more freight transport can be switched from land to sea with resulting environmental benefits.
Money for bottlenecks
The EU funding will be used to eliminate bottlenecks in the port infrastructure, to improve the flow of information and for security systems. For the Port of Gothenburg the EUR 11.5 million that has been allocated will be used to improve road and rail links, a project that will be run together with the Swedish Transport Administration, the Port of Gothenburg and the Skandia Container Terminal. The City of Gothenburg and the Port of Gothenburg have worked with the Swedish government to secure funding for the project. “For the City of Gothenburg, with its extensive maritime tradition and as the largest port in Scandinavia, the project is a mark of our importance as a maritime centre for the whole of the Baltic region. We are looking forward to close, intense collaboration with other port cities throughout Europe and the continued development of the Port of Gothenburg as a Baltic hub. The project is also an indication of the importance of the City of Gothenburg being strongly represented in Brussels,” states Annelie Hulthén, chairwoman, Gothenburg Municipal Executive Committee.