The PAV Board of Directors has unanimously agreed to pay this recognition to a key figure in the development of the Port of València.
Perfecto Palacio was the first to introduce the container in València at the Turia Norte Pier, which now bears his name.
The businessman Perfecto Palacio de la Fuente, a key figure in the development of the Port of Valencia, will have his dock in the future passenger terminal, specifically in the Turia Norte breakwater, which will now bear his name. The Port Authority of Valencia (PAV) has chosen this space to remember Perfecto Palacio because it was the quay where he began operating in 1972 with the first private crane in a Spanish port for loading and unloading containers. It was the commissioning of this crane on the breakwater that prompted the decision to call a public tender for the management of the facilities, which led to the arrival of other shipowners and shipping companies in Valencia. Thanks to this, the port of Valencia is currently a reference point for container traffic in the Mediterranean and internationally.
Aurelio Martínez, president of the PAV, highlighted the figure of Perfecto Palacio, “the driving force behind container traffic and the seed of what today is the Port of Valencia. He was a visionary businessman who, on his trips to the United States, identified that the container was a key element for transport. He requested the installation of a private crane to operate in Valencia with this form of transport, founding Marítima Valenciana in 1969 and acquiring in Austria a Liebherr crane for loading and unloading containers which he installed on the quay that will now bear his name”. In 1972, the arrival of the Norwegian-flagged ship “Sally Stove” symbolically inaugurated the first container terminal in the Port of Valencia on the Turia Norte breakwater, now known as the Perfecto Palacio de la Fuente quay. These containers have provided Valencians with economic activity, employment, internationalisation and culture.
The recently deceased businessman was the driving force behind container operations in the Port of Valencia and the great architect of the fact that the port area is the leading Spanish port in terms of container movement and a reference centre in the Mediterranean at the service of the companies in its hinterland. The PAV has shown its gratitude to Perfecto Palacio on numerous occasions, most recently at the exhibition Això és TEU – 5,000,000, held at Valenciaport in December 2018.