The port of Antwerp is to make its expertise available to benefit the management of ports in Brazil by providing a special series of seminars in two already active training centres for maritime professionals.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on March 13, 2018 by Marc Van Peel, Port of Antwerp’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, and other key figures, including Maurício Quintella, the Brazilian minister of Transport, Ports and Civil Aviation.
The port of Antwerp has already applied a similar model successfully in India, where a special training centre for maritime professionals has been set up in the Indian port city of Mumbai.
During the MoU signing, Van Peel said: “Our training subsidiary APEC has demonstrable, relevant experience in training port professionals.
“Furthermore, Antwerp is a major trading partner for Brazil. Thanks to our services we will further develop this collaboration.”
Brazil has 45 publicly-owned ports and 131 private port terminals.
The ports are crucial for Brazil’s foreign trade, with no less than 98.6% of its foreign exports passing through them in 2015.
However, the logistical infrastructure urgently needs to be modernised, as one of the most important factors for success in order to boost the economy and to keep the country competitive internationally.
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Kristof Waterschoot, APEC Managing Director, said: “It is against this background that APEC has been asked by the Brazilian ministry to make a wider contribution.
“APEC is already well known in Brazilian port circles, as more than 660 maritime professionals from Brazil have so far attended a seminar or other training in Antwerp.”
Waterschoot added: “Antwerp already has a strong reputation for the high degree of professionalism of its dock workers, and so we will develop a tailor-made programme for dock labour in collaboration with the Antwerp training centre.”
With an annual freight volume of 7.1 million tonnes Brazil is Antwerp’s seventh-largest trading partner.
Ports such as Salvador, Santos, Paranagua, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande generate large volumes of cargo with containers carrying deepfreeze goods and agricultural products, along with exports and imports of fuel derivatives and metal products.
In summer last year, another of Antwerp Port Authority subsidiary, Port of Antwerp International, decided to invest 10 million dollars in Porto do Açu, the first private operational port complex in the North of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil’s industrial heartland.
Van Peel added: “Brazil is the main gateway to South America for the port of Antwerp, and thus for the many Flemish and European countries seeking to do business there.
“It is therefore essential for us to have a presence here in many ways, in order to raise the name recognition of Antwerp as the ideal gateway to Europe.”
