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The Panama Canal turns 107 years old

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The Panama Canal turns 107 years old. This route is the commercial transit road through which more than 1.1 million vessels have passed that worldwide has served as a transit before making landfall at their destination.

Last August 15 was the 107th birthday of the Panama Canal, which since 1914 has served as a port transit for ships. It is a recognized route because it helps reduce distances, costs, and time in the transportation of goods.

At the same time, the Panama Canal has been a response to the economic empowerment of Panama, being a sustainable organization in the face of current conditions.

The environmentally friendly Panama Canal…

“The world is demanding that companies offer services and products that have a low carbon footprint, so we are going to make investments to adapt to that reality, in line with our environmental tradition,” says Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, administrator of the Panama Canal

In 2030 it is expected to be a carbon-neutral organization, strengthening its commitment to the environment.

At the same time, the organization ensures that the route has helped to minimize CO2  by more than 830 million tons. This is because ships save fuel by passing through a shorter route and moving a greater amount of cargo volume.

 Without a doubt, its large-scale growth has managed to last over time and promises to continue to be a profitable and sustainable route for the millions of ships that transit the sea.

Read the complete note in Mundo Marítimo.

Spain seeks to become a leader in maritime transport in Europe

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Spain seeks to implement a wide variety of technological tools to boost competitiveness in the Spanish port system, and thus become the leader in maritime transport within Europe.

In the report published by the Ports Commission of the Chamber of Spain, entitled “Measures to promote the competitiveness of the Spanish port system”, all the measures to be implemented are detailed and are grouped into 5 categories such as: governance, management of border control ports, intermodality, digitization, and training, which will be renewed thanks to technological advances.

Among the technologies that they will implement at the port, digitization level is 5G sensorization, automation, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, IoT, and distributed ledger technology such as Blockchain.

The purpose of these measures is to take advantage of an industry that is underdeveloped in terms of innovation and digitization and thus transform Spanish ports into a 4.0 model, which are intelligent, interoperable, and transparent.

There are currently 3 Spanish ports (Valencia, Algeciras, and Barcelona) that are in the top 30 of the world ranking of ports thanks to the influx of merchandise, so this type of measure seeks to promote logistics and port development, which will help Spain to become a leader in the maritime sector in Europe.

 

Digital acceleration in the port sector

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The shipping sector has been characterized by being very traditional and not very adventurous when it comes to implementing new solutions that imply drastic changes in its behavior. However, the port industry has grown in the last 3 months than in the last 3 years, and all due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Currently, it has been possible to evidence a striking trend for the implementation of digital tools and platforms aimed at the digital transformation of ports and shipping companies. This without leaving aside those aimed at cybersecurity that today has become a primary concern for any sector.

The technological implementation in the port sector is considered the second major transformation of the industry after the creation of containers, taking as one of the main contributions the digitization and automation of processes. The implementation of software that performs merchandise traceability and the interconnection of ports are just some of the improvements that the sector has received, and can only provide greater visibility and confidence in the port industry.

However, the change in the sector is not only limited to technological tools. There is also hard work together to encourage ecological work practices such as the development of green hydrogen for the decarbonization of maritime transport that can offer greater sustainability to the industry.

These are great advances for an industry that has always been considered extremely conservative. However, the need to face a situation like the pandemic has provided numerous opportunities for startups and venture capital companies to enter an industry that generates billions of dollars a year.

 

Alarms go off with mega-ships

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After the Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal, maritime authorities raised their alarms, thanks to the new mega-ships being built today.

With the growing surge of international trade, the manufacture of vessels increases more and more and with it its size. This entails a great responsibility because the ports are not prepared for the reception of the new mega-ships.

“Ports and canals have not always been developed enough to accommodate extra-large vessels and in some cases, they have become relatively narrow and markedly reduced maneuvering space and margin for error,” explains Rahul Khanna.

Thanks to this, concern increases because the production of these mega-ships is only intended to cover the needs of one sector, without measuring the risks that may arise with maritime transport.

In this sense, China and South Korea are the ones currently in the battle for the production of ships: “In 2020, 43% and 41% of the world market of orders for the sector were respectively distributed.”

What are the consequences of mega-ships?

The biggest concern is undoubtedly the issue of collisions, accidents such as fires, or the danger posed by the size of the ships in ports. Also, the handling of a large ship in extreme weather situations.

 This leads to the movement of infrastructure that must be done in the ports, to optimize the departure and grounding of mega-ships.

You can read the full note in Portfolio.

 

E-Commerce and the shipping sector, the perfect combination

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After a year, the pandemic issue is still on the rampage. Many have seen the opportunity within the crisis and taken advantage of the mechanisms left by Covid-19 to get ahead. Such is the case of the shipping industry with E-Commerce.

Although the shipping industry has been as affected as other sectors, today can see the light thanks to the rapid growth of E-Commerce and the logistics systems that appear today to support electronic commerce.

“A McKinsey & Company study on the retail recovery from Covid-19 concludes that online penetration expected to remain six to 13 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.”

Despite being a good omen for the shipping sector, this has been slightly affected by the lack of capacity of ships to transport the products that mostly come from China, which means that as well as many other sectors they were not expected. That a possible crisis will benefit them.

In this sense, the maritime transport service does not stop, and the opportunities are more. This being a time to optimize services through different technologies that can be applied to improve the planning of shipping lines and seaports.

An example of digitization is the logistics company Maersk, which has improved its system to bring its customers the best service thanks to the technological improvements it has made to its business model. Similarly, errors are minimized, and reliability is increased.

Do you want to know how digitization can help the nautical sector? Click here and learn a little more.

Source: Mundo Marítimo