---

The Port of Rotterdam Authority (PoRA) has said that it 'fully supports' 2015 low sulphur regulation and that it believes the recently published EU White Paper on Transport is in line with its own long-term vision, entitled Port Vision 2030.

Commenting on the White Paper, PoRA said: "In general, the PoRA agrees with the objectives and concrete measures announced by the European Commission (EC). Rotterdam does see some issues with the Paper, which argues for the distribution of import goods across more ports (so called 'entry ports') on the one hand and for bundling in favour of developing a multimodal core network on the other hand. Furthermore, the PoRA is of the opinion that the EC is too rigid in its approach to the modal split."

On the issue of Emission Control Areas, (ECAs) the PoRA said it was 'arguing for an even playing field' for both economic and ecological reasons.

"It fully supports existing international agreements within the International Maritime Organization for sharpening the standard from 1% sulphur to 0.1% sulphur for ECAs (Emission Control Areas) in 2015," PoRA said.

The authority added that it believes the rules should apply not only to the North Sea and Baltic Sea ECAs, but to all coastal waters.

Port Vision 2030

Last year the PoRA estimated that goods throughput could rise by 155-320 million tonnes, or 37-76 percent, from 420 million tonnes to 575-740 million tonnes by 2030.

The estimates form the basis of 'Port Vision 2030', a vision of the future which is meant to serve as a pointer for the further development of the port.

The port authority used economic scenarios from the CPB (Central Planning Office) and EU to get a picture of the opportunities and threats for the development of the port. The scenarios are based on:

- existing policy and moderate economic growth (European Trend scenario)

- further globalisation combined with a low oil price, leading to high economic growth (Global Economy scenario), and

- a high oil price, a strict environmental policy, moderate economic growth and a relatively rapid shift to sustainability by industry and logistics (High Oil Price scenario).

Rigid

According to PoRA, the EC is 'too rigid' in its approach to the modal split. Commenting on the issue, PoRA said: "For example, the Commission finds that the distance between the port and final destination must be at least 300 kilometres in order to develop initiatives for shifting freight transport from the road to inland waterways or the railways (the so-called 'modal shift'). The PoRA is asking that the minimum distance be halved to 150 km. Currently, inland waterway transport is already competing with road transport by a distance of 50 km from the Port of Rotterdam, for example, to the inland port of Alphen aan den Rijn.

"In Rotterdam the minimum distance for railway transport is 200 kilometres. Cutting this official limit in half would mean that more initiatives would be eligible for support from the EU. The PoRA supports the goal of the EC to shift 30% of overland freight transport to the railways and inland waterways by 2030 and 50% of this traffic by 2050."