During these days, priority has been given to traffic with the Balearic Islands and the departure of import containers accumulated in the port facilities.
The Port of Valencia continues to recover its normality which has been conditioned by the storm and the transport stoppage.
Since yesterday, both land and maritime traffic activity has been recovering. The number of ships at anchor has been reduced from 22 to 16 and lorry traffic has gone from 40% to more than 50%.
Over the next few days, the Port of Valencia, which accounts for 40% of import/export traffic in the Spanish port system, will gradually return to normal operations.
The President of the Port Authority of Valencia thanked the port community and the State Security Forces for their work.
The president of the Port Authority of Valencia (PAV), Aurelio Martínez, explained this morning the situation of the Port of Valencia, which has been conditioned these days by two exceptional circumstances that have not occurred in other port areas: the storm and the strike in the transport sector. A scenario that has affected loading and unloading operations in the Port of Valencia, which has led to the accumulation of containers in the facilities of the Valencian precinct. The Contingency Plan agreed by the port community in the Marca de Garantia is proving effective in resolving this situation.
For the president of the PAV, “the situation experienced over the last two weeks shows that the Port is becoming too small and that we need the new container terminal. It is a demand that we have been defending for more than two years and that day by day proves that it is a fact. Furthermore, while this new infrastructure arrives, we have to look for new spaces to store empty and import containers”.
During the media conference, Aurelio Martínez assured that the Port of Valencia is returning to normality with the implementation of the Contingency Plan drawn up by the Marca de Garantía. An operation which has been affected by the closure of maritime traffic for the last 15 days caused by the DANA CELIA storm and the blockage for some days now of land access to the port as a result of the transport stoppages. “In Valencia, these two situations have converged, which has meant that the yards where the containers are stored are full of goods, as the ships arriving took the little export that there was because no lorries entered and unloaded the imports, which has led to an accumulation of goods in the port area”, said the president of the PAV.
In recent days, due to these circumstances, the Port of Valencia was operating at around 15% of its activity, a figure that yesterday stood at 40% and today will be above 50%, a situation that will be improving in the coming days due to the reduction in the transport strike and the measures adopted within the Marca de Garantía in which the entire port community is represented. “This plan – indicated Martínez – contemplates prioritising the exit of containers from the yards of the port area to leave space and in the next few days both export and import will be operating. It is an arrangement based on the principle of letting them out before they come in. If all goes well, by the end of this week or at the beginning of next week, all operations will be resolved and normality will be restored”.
The head of Valenciaport also highlighted the work of the State Security Forces, which in recent days has been “very effective and has prevented acts of violence and the blocking of the entrance to the site”.
Finally, Aurelio Martínez thanked the work of the port community during these days “to maintain supplies to the Balearic Islands despite the harsh weather conditions and the measures they have put in place, within the framework of the Contingency Plan of the Guarantee Mark, to recover normal activity in the facilities”.