BACKGROUND
In accordance with the Work Programme of the Permanent Secretariat for 2018, the III Regional Meeting of Logistic Port Communities was held in Lima, Peru, from 16 to 18 August and was attended by industry executives, ministry officials and public agencies, consultants, and researchers from 13 countries and 28 port systems. The central objective of the event was to develop a regional agenda for trade facilitation and transport, with emphasis on the role of ports as articulators of competitiveness of logistics corridors for economic integration. This event became a space for encounter of ministries of transport, national port authorities, logistics communities and international technical cooperation, so that the D&C Ports Network and its members could define their future as a regional partnership.
Participants discussed the role of public policies in the promotion and facilitation of logistic port communities (cases of Chile, Peru and Colombia) and their potential impact on the industry. The major regional port systems presented their vision on future ports in the areas of governance, community technology, sustainability, and logistics corridors. In addition, the results of the qualitative and quantitative studies were presented to measure the level of competitiveness of the port logistics chain in the main port systems.
In addition, the III General Assembly of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Digital and Collaborative Ports took place. In this event, an agreement was reached that an open letter, entitled “Lima Declaration”, would be drafted and sent to governments with the purpose of promoting the implementation, in the short and medium term, of a set of public policies based on the needs for greater fluidity, productivity and competitiveness in foreign trade in pursuit of comprehensive and collaborative improvement in 2030.
In this IV Meeting, a proposal will be made to prepare a 2030 agenda for regional port transformation, which will be subsequently promoted with the participation of a number of multilateral organizations that develop technical cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, foreign trade, logistics and transport. This event is expected to be a high-level forum for encounter and networking among ministries, national port authorities, logistic communities, and logistic, academic, and international technical cooperation unions, as well as for exchange of information on projects for implementation of change management solutions in port environments.
