Annual consultations of the Port Governance Agency held

The Port Governance Agency has held the sixth regular annual consultations with the Groups for ports and harbors and inland shipping of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia. The meeting, which was held online due to the current epidemiological situation, was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the Danube Commission, the Directorate for Inland Waterways, the Association ,,Serbia Grains’’ and the Association of Gravel, Aggregates and Concrete Producers.

Vuk Perovic, director of the Port Governance Agency, pointed out that the previous year was challenging for business. According to him, the recorded increase in cargo transhipment at the end of 2020 indicates that IWT has proven to be a flexible and efficient mode of transport even in pandemic conditions. Due to the suspension of cruising in the whole of Europe, only one percent of the results were recorded in passenger traffic, so the focus of the Agency in the next period will be the recovery of passenger traffic and the opening of new international passenger terminals. Perovic added that during 2020, the Agency worked on improving of the legal framework, infrastructure projects, development of marinas, as well as on strengthening of the international cooperation.

Representatives of the groups praised the cooperation with the Agency and assessed that the participants in IWT responded well to the last year’s challenges. Thanks to the joint work of all relevant subjects and institutions, good results have been achieved, the members of the groups concluded.

Dejan Trifunovic from the Danube Commission presented the plans and future projects that the commission will initiate in the forthcoming period. Special attention will be paid to the waste management, "green" navigation and digitalization. He announced that the meeting dedicated to the development of ports will be held in 2021, which will be attended by delegations of the member states of the Danube Commission, and invited the Agency to take an active part in the mentioned meeting.

During the discussion, it was emphasized that the annual consultations are an important conference where common solutions for the improvement of IWT can be found. Representatives of the Agency emphasized that this institution would continue to be open to any questions and providing of the professional support, in order to further improve this branch of transport.