In every historical period, trade orbited around logistics centres, which managed to take over the commercial flows from Asia, Africa and more distant continents. The development of a transport network integrated at European level, which led to the creation of the first consolidated commercial gateways which manage to survive the political and social turmoil, proved to be a factor of economic and political stability, as well as a catalyst for the development of an economically unified Europe. An interesting concept even today is the one promoted by French Prime Minister Jules Mazarin, called “Advantage of the other” – the common good, through which the economic support of another country beings economic benefits and political stability to the resident country, contributing to the development of inter-country trade. Based on this principle, several Dutch companies propose the nomination of Romania as the East European Commercial Gateway, in the context in which several centres located in the north-west of the continent are buried in taxes and the development limit, as well as a logistical void which risks of emerging between the Occident and the emerging Asian markets, are imminent.
At present, most of the freight intended for EU member states enter Europe through Western European ports, despite the fact that the freight comes from the Far East. This means that the freight coming from China or India and intended for Eastern European countries has to go around through ports such as Rotterdam, Antwerp or Hamburg. Therefore, the simple geographic position would ensure the port of Constanța a major advantage as opposed to the Western ports. The new economic context has determined companies to guide their activities base on three key objectives: cost reduction, risk reduction and time reduction.
Starting from this premise, a group of Dutch companies have launched a challenge for foreign and Romanian investors, in order to turn Constanţa into a world renowned logistics hub, which could benefit both Romanian and foreign companies.
The European Gateways Platform (EGP) reunites representatives from the largest Dutch companies that activate on the transport logistics market. EGP has the support of the Chamber of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Netherlands. They all want to share their experience and know-how achieved since the Netherlands became an EU member state and help develop Romania as an integrator of Eurasian trade in the region.
EGP organised a workshop which focused on turning Romania into a East European commercial gateway. During the sessions held on April 28, 2010, Robin Martens, Managing Director EGP and Vice-President of the Netherlands-Romanian Chamber of Commerce, said that “transport and trade are still looking for <the easiest way out> and thus it’s quite clear for the industrial and logistics sector that new logistics corridors and hubs should be developed in and around these geographical areas”.
Constanţa, logistics hub of international importance
The economic impact of the implementation of this project may, theoretically, propel Romania among the countries with the highest level of trade. EGP estimates that redirecting freight from Asia towards the future Black Sea port may increase Romania’s GDP by EUR 25 Billion, create 150.000 new work places and the state may obtain over EUR 4 Billion from taxes.
The entire European logistics market has been estimated at a value of around EUR 860 Billion. Dutch companies develop business of EUR 46 Billion, while Romanian companies develop business of only EUR 6 Billion. The future Constanţa Logistics Hub (CLH) may generate business of EUR 24 Billion. The potential here is huge. This has been confirmed also by studies elaborated by Chinese companies, which made a list of priorities related to the identification of future logistics locations for freight unloading. The list includes at the top the location, followed by the transport infrastructure (in 90% of the cases these are the main criteria on which Chinese companies base their future operations), fiscal regulations (80%) and the IT and telecommunications infrastructure (70%). The modern facilities which will be created within the future Constanţa Logistics Hub (CLH) will also reduce freight congestion in the port of Rotterdam, the most overcrowded European port and third at international level. Experts say that the port of Rotterdam will no longer manage to cover all freight activities, in the context of an almost ending development, which doesn’t allow capacity expansion and the takeover of higher volumes of freight. This is also reflected by the fact that the construction of the Maasvlakte 2 port extension was cancelled. The extension was given the green-light in 2004 by the Dutch Parliament, but the costs would have exceeded the construction of the Maasvlakte 1 and Europoort facilities. The project was too expensive and it would have taken too long to recover the investments made.
by Alin Lupulescu
Share on:
