How has the role of the shipping agent changed today? Is it still essential in Italy?
“Without a doubt, its role has undergone a profound evolution in line with the new guidelines dictated by the 1994 port reform law, amended in 2016. From the role of assistant to the ship’s master in dealing with local authorities, the ship agent has had to carve out an entrepreneurial function as a logistics operator supporting the demands of the shipowner’s represented.”
How do you rate the Campania port system? What are the shortcomings and merits?
“As a shortcoming, I register the failure to include the ports of Torre Annunziata and Pozzuoli in our Port Authority System of the Central Tyrrhenian Sea. Having all five major ports in Campania included in the perimeter of the PAS could certainly facilitate the streamlining of traffic. Further deficit, unfortunately unsolvable, is the location in the heart of the city of the two major ports (Naples and Salerno) with significant traffic and pollution problems. As for the merits, I identify them especially in the cruise sector, namely having the maritime station, both in Naples and Salerno, located in the center of the city. It undoubtedly represents a significant attractive factor for cruise passengers having the subway in Naples, with the beautiful Piazza Municipio station exiting directly onto the maritime station and on the new facility located at the Beverello pier serving traffic to the Gulf islands.”
How should the Port of Naples improve? And what advice would you give to the Port and the Region to make it more appealing and attract new shipowners from the various commodity sectors?
“The Port of Naples should be redesigned or rationalized in the allocation of space and the docks to be reserved for traffic, but I realize that this is impossible to achieve since we are we are still thinking on the basis of the guidelines of the 1958 port master plan, that is, at a time when there was no talk of either naval gigantism or containers (their use began in the late 1960s). In light of what I have observed, the only thing that I feel to suggest to the Port Authority is the search for and identification of new spaces in the port to be equipped and allocated for commercial traffic.”
What do you see as the biggest handicap of the Neapolitan port of call?
“I identify the biggest deficiency of the Neapolitan port of call in the absence of a container terminal capable of accommodating the latest generation of ships.”
