“I Final data of Italian ports in 2023, produced by Assoporti (Association of Port Authorities), while showing a slight decline in national freight traffic (-3.2%) compared to a high growth rate in passenger traffic (+16.3%) and cruise traffic (+48.3%), document a series of defeats for the port of Ravenna, which public institutions, however, keep hidden.
Let’s say right away that the praised 330,952 cruise passengers of 2023 (+71.3% on 2022) were the only positive data for our city, which however appears inflated, like Aesop’s frog in front of the ox, noting that they represent just 2.4% of the national data, equal to 13 million and 357 thousand. The rest is pitch black, starting from solid bulkwhere we remain the leading Italian port, having however lost 14.1%, that is over 10 million tons, and continuing with the liquid bulkdown 5.8%, or 4.5 million tons less.
The magnified and progressive fortunes of the port of Ravenna are however all concentrated on the container trafficthe true heart of its dreamed-of future. If it goes badly, the port will sink from Serie B to the C of its early days, rather than being promoted to Serie A. To immediately reach this exciting goal, we have rushed to Phase 2 of the project “Ravenna Port Hub”while Phase 1 is still behind schedule, which will lower the depth of the port from the historic 10 meters to 12.5, the only goal unanimously shared by the City Council. Phase 2 instead means digging the port channel up to 14.5 meters, not only in the Candiano, but also for 17 kilometers in the sea, before its mouth. It means, above all, spending hundreds of millions to build, in the area Treat them Right, on 360,000 square meters of virgin land, a new maxi container terminal with a kilometer of quay, intended, explicitly, to “move 500 thousand TEU units” in the port of Ravenna. 22 years ago, when SAPIR, the public oligopolist of the port, established the public-private company TCR (Terminal Container Ravenna), the goal was to quickly reach 300 thousand TEUs, as many as the historic terminal of the San Vitale dock, owned by Sapir itself, can hold, which however has always continued to sail far out to sea. But in 2023, moving just 190,343, it lost almost 10 thousand compared to 2022, its maximum result. It reached 216,981 also counting the private container terminal of Setramar.
Perhaps a cathedral in the desert? The data produced by do not say no Fedespedi (Federation of National Shipping Companies), it’s yes Unctat (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development)as just exposed and commented on by the online newspaper Shipping Italy. Fedespedi, analyzing the effects of the Suez crisis in the first quarter of 2024 on containers handled in the major Italian ports, shows good growth in Liguria and Salerno, a slight decrease in Naples and some landslides in the others, but even bloodletting in the Adriatic ports of Trieste (-17.3%), Venice (-12%) and Ravenna (-15.8%), which “they seem to have paid the highest price for the center of gravity of the Asia-Europe trade routes”. Unctad, updating the index on the degree of integration of nations in the global container shipping network to the second half of 2024, reveals that it appears stable for Italy, placing the port of Ravenna at the bottom of the national ranking, 12th out of 15, down 11% compared to the second half of 2023. Statistical data from prestigious institutes. Not political chatter, which is also careful not to report that the reference port even for Emilia-Romagna, that is, for our home – never mind Asia-Europe, never mind “Ravenna: from Eastern Port to Global Port” – is that of La Spezia, where 20,000 TEU ships dock, which in 2023 totaled 1,139,088.”
: The hidden defeats of the port of Ravenna){kind=link}