Infrastructure, connectivity and energy: the pillars of the Port of Barcelona Fifth Strategic Plan

The Port of Barcelona is beginning a new stage with the Fifth Strategic Plan for 2026-2030, a document that defines the roadmap for transforming the port over the coming years and bolstering its resilience in the face of an increasingly unstable global environment. Under the Plan, infrastructure, connectivity and energy are seen as the key pillars for minimising the impact of future supply chain disruptions. 

The new Strategic Plan marks the beginning of the largest investment cycle in the history of the Port of Barcelona and aims to build solid, modern and well-connected infrastructures enabling us to assure the competitiveness of the foreign sector, strengthen sustainability and maintain the port's role as an economic and social driver. 

This new roadmap is the continuation of the previous plan, which allowed us to achieve milestones such as employing over 40,000 people in the port area, foreign trade topping €70 billion per year and installing OPS wharf electrification systems for container ships and ferries. 

Infrastructure, connectivity and energy 

The Fifth Strategic Plan is committed to comprehensively transforming the port's spaces and infrastructures, with key actions such as reorganising activity towards the south, new road and rail accesses, building new berthing points and rolling out the Energy Transition Plan, which includes the development of an energy production and distribution hub. 

These investments are essential to adapt the Port of Barcelona to the new demands of international trade, strengthening its logistics and energy connectivity and moving towards a more sustainable and resilient model. 

Integrated vision of the port: more Port Vell and more logistics space 

One significant new element of the Fifth Strategic Plan is the overall integrated vision of the Port of Barcelona, which for the first time jointly encompasses the commercial port, the logistics port and the citizen port. 

In this connection, the Plan incorporates the first Strategic Plan for the Port Vell (Old Port), approved in 2024, to consolidate the port-city as a benchmark space for urban transformation, innovation and sustainability. In this way, the Port Vell is now a key element for strengthening the port's relationship with society, obtaining its approval and garnering the social support required for major future projects. 

With regard to the logistics port, the Fifth Strategic Plan 2026-2030 identifies the need to increase the land available through CILSA and to incorporate new spaces beyond the current borders of the ZAL to continue attracting strategic projects and high added value advanced logistics activities. 

Economic, environmental and social sustainability 

The Plan is structured around 120 initiatives grouped into 25 economic, environmental and social objectives. The aim under the economic aspect is to achieve a sustainable financing model allowing the development of future infrastructures. In the environmental area, and in line with the Energy Transition Plan, the general objective is to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as a preliminary step to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. In the social sphere, the Fifth Strategic Plan focuses on generating quality jobs, training and talent recruitment and boosting activities linked to the blue economy, innovation and knowledge. 

“The Fifth Strategic Plan marks the beginning of a new cycle of investments and changes that will transform the port, its spaces and its infrastructures. It is the Port of Barcelona's response to major global changes and the path towards a more resilient and connected port of the future,” stated Port of Barcelona president José Alberto Carbonell during the presentation of the document. 

Jordi Torrent, Head of Strategy at the Port of Barcelona, highlighted that “diversification has been key to resisting the disruptions of recent years, and the new Plan delves deeper into this model with an integrated vision that includes the entire port and allows us to continue generating prosperity in a turbulent environment”. 

Read more about the Strategic Plan here.