Inland Navigation Conference in Wroclaw on 18/19 April 2018 illustrated a worldwide trend towards the (re)vitalisation of inland shipping

The con­fe­rence, car­ri­ed out by UNECE in co­ope­ra­ti­on wi­th the Polish Ministry of Maritime and Inland Navigation, pro­vi­ded a com­pre­hen­si­ve over­view of cur­rent pro­jects to enhan­ce the de­ve­lo­p­ment of in­land wa­ter­way trans­port in Africa, Asia and Europe.

For ex­am­p­le, China is fol­lo­wing the ex­ten­si­on of the ca­nal, espe­ci­al­ly in the Yangtze River, is now mo­re em­pha­sis on in­cre­asing the qua­li­ty and eco-fri­end­li­ne­ss, in­clu­ding th­rough the es­tab­lish­ment of emis­si­on-con­trol­led are­as from 2019. China re­li­es en­ti­re­ly on LNG. Until 2017 270 LNG ships we­re built and fur­nis­hed along the Yangtze LNG fil­ling sta­ti­ons.

The Polish go­vern­ment is al­so plan­ning to re­turn to in­land ship­ping, espe­ci­al­ly on the Vistula and the Oder. A fe­a­si­bi­li­ty stu­dy com­mis­sio­ned by the Port of Gdansk in 2017 poin­ted to the po­si­ti­ve ef­fects of the Vistula. A mo­der­niza­ti­on of the fleet and the 108 locks is im­mi­nent in the Russian Federation. 

The lat­ter should be do­ne wi­th sta­te funds, but al­so a user fi­nan­cing is dis­cus­sed. In the Czech Republic, af­ter leng­thy con­side­ra­ti­on, the go­vern­ment has no­ted the over­whel­ming pu­blic in­te­rest in the con­s­truc­tion of the low-wa­ter le­vel and the lock down­stream of the Decin har­bor. This cle­ars the way for fur­ther en­vi­ron­men­tal com­pen­sa­to­ry me­a­su­res and con­s­truc­tion. As a re­sult the port of Decin will be­co­me a part of the cof­fe­red Czech wa­ter­way net­work, which will con­sider­a­b­ly streng­then its func­tion as a tri­mo­dal trans­ship­ment point espe­ci­al­ly for down­stream lightering’s and pay­loads upstream. As a participant, 

Dr. Norbert Wagener sums up that in­land wa­ter­way trans­port is streng­thening in com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness and gai­ning mar­ket share in the abo­ve-men­tio­ned re­gi­ons pro­fit of strong in­fra­struc­tu­re in­vest­ments, mo­dern con­cepts such as di­gi­tiza­ti­on, mul­ti­mo­da­li­ty, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly pro­pul­si­on tech­no­lo­gies and en­vi­ron­men­tal con­side­ra­ti­ons (“Working wi­th Nature”).

Inland Navigation Conference in Wroclaw on 18/19 April 2018 il­lus­tra­ted a world­wi­de trend towards the (re)vitalisation of in­land shipping
Tagged on: