During the Irish Ports Association 2013 Conference, held in Dublin, PortEconomics co-director Τhanos Pallis presented the lessons that European ports and policy makers might learn from cases of countries that failed to conclude port reforms, extracting lessons from the Greek case
The 2013 IPA conference brought together an elite panel of speakers that looked at recent policy developments in Ireland and beyond, as well as presented examples from around the world as to how ports have adapted and responded to changing regulatory environments.
Thanos discribed the long journey of the Greek state to reform the Greek port system, in the light of the country’s program restructuring the national economy. The emphasis of the presentation is on the lessons that were learnt during the first major concession of a container terminal in Greece to a private operator (the COSCO subsidiary SEP), the remarkably slow progress of the country’s privitisation program, the remaining challenges, the need to focus on labour reforms, and not least the necessity to accommodate a demand that has few, if any, commonalities with the demand of the past.
All these under the prism that other EU member-states as well as the European port policies might be informed by failures, successes and progress of what happened in other European countries attempting to reform their ports.
You might freely download the presentation @ PortEconomics
