03 Management and business area

The Port of Barcelona is understood as the sum of activities performed within the port infrastructure by a series of public and private organisations that are managed independently but are coordinated and led by the Barcelona Port Authority with a shared overall strategy.

ORIENTATION TO THE SDGS

The actors of the Port of Barcelona

Leadership: Barcelona Port Authority

Barcelona Port Authority (APB) is a public body with a legal personality and its own assets, which is responsible for the administration, control, management and operation of the Port of Barcelona. It is the organisation that leads the Port as a whole, lays the foundations for its operation and the search for a common goal, and represents it.

The Port Community

The Port of Barcelona is a concept of shared service and quality that serves as a cooperative link among all the agents, organisations and administrations that participate in port activity. All these agents are grouped under the name of Port of Barcelona Port Community (PC), comprising more than 450 administrations, bodies and companies located in the port area or its surroundings, and which in this document are called “organisations”.

Stakeholders

To respond to requests for information and the expectations of stakeholders, it is essential that such groups be clearly defined.

STAKEHOLDER GROUPS AND SUBGROUPS OF THE PORT OF BARCELONA, 2020

The infrastructure

The Port of Barcelona is the main transport and services infrastructure in Catalonia and a benchmark port in the Euromediterranean region, in which more than 450 organisations work. It has 91 regular lines that connect the Catalan capital directly with 198 ports on five continents and is a port specialising in general cargo and high value-added goods.

General technical characteristics of the Port

Governance and operation

Governing bodies

ADMINISTRATION BOARD OF BARCELONA PORT AUTHORITY

This is the highest governing body of the Port of Barcelona and represents the main public administrations with interests in the Port, as well as the social partners and key sectors in the port area.

Administration Board of Barcelona Port Authority at 31 December 2020

President Mercè Conesa i Pagès

Ex officio member Francisco J. Valencia Alonso, harbourmaster

General Manager José Alberto Carbonell Camallonga

Members representing the General State Administration

Teresa Cunillera i Mestres, Government Delegate in Catalonia

Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, Secretary General of Puertos del Estado

Cristina Ozores Jack, State's Attorney

Members representing the Administration of the Generalitat de Catalunya

Antoni Llobet de Pablo, president of the Official Association of Customs Agents of Barcelona

Xavier Tàrraga Martínez, coordinator of the Catalan-Balearic area of the State Coordinator of Dockers

Jordi Trius, President of the Association of Shipping Agents of Barcelona

Emili Sanz Martínez, President of the Association of Freight Forwarders and International Shippers and similar (ATEIA-OLTRA Barcelona)

Members representing the municipalities in which the service area of the Port of Barcelona is located

Janet Sanz Cid, second deputy mayor of Barcelona City Council

Lluís Mijoler Martínez, Mayor of El Prat de Llobregat City Council

Members representing the chambers of commerce, business and trade union organisations and key sectors in the port area

Xavier Sunyer i Déu, Barcelona Chamber of Commerce

Xabier María Vidal Niebla, President of the Association of Port Stevedoring Companies of Barcelona

José Pérez Domínguez, CCOO

Carlos González Quirós, UGT

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF BARCELONA PORT AUTHORITY

This management body brings together the various functional areas of Barcelona Port Authority.

COMPOSITION OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF BARCELONA PORT AUTHORITY 2020

STEERING COUNCIL FOR THE PROMOTION OF BARCELONA PORT COMMUNITY

This body represents the desire for cooperation between the public and private institutions performing their activity in the port area of Barcelona and others related to international trade, therefore all the players in the port business are involved as well as representing the Port Community.

The Steering Council comprises 68 professionals from the participating companies and is structured into one Executive Committee and eight Working Groups.

ORGANISATION OF THE PORT COMMUNITY, 2020

The guiding principles

TRANSPARENCY

Barcelona Port Authority provides various types of information (institutional, organisational and planning; of legal relevance; and economic, budgetary and statistical), both through the website and the specific request for information through the Opendata portal.

ETHICS AND INTEGRITY

One way in which any organisation can show clearly its commitment to ethics and integrity, as an essential aspect of governance, is by providing a code of ethics or good governance, specific internal regulations, or internal compliance processes that include the aspects mentioned.

The Code of ethics of the Port of Barcelona, approved in May 2015, establishes the values and guidelines of conduct that should mark the behaviour of everyone working there, both in terms of daily operations and in relations with stakeholders.

SUSTAINABILITY

The Port of Barcelona has been a party to the United Nations Global Compact and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since the start in 2015, orienting its actions to these goals, as reflected in this Port of Barcelona 2020 Annual Report.

Value contribution

The Port of Barcelona is one of the main drivers of economic development in Catalonia. It plays a key role in the internationalisation drives of companies, acting as a physical link between them and their markets, and is also one of the key competitiveness factors for companies deciding where to locate. In addition to this, however, the Port of Barcelona's priority objective is to promote the sustainability of port activity and of the logistics chains that use the Port.

Contribution to GVA

The gross value added (GVA) generated by port activity —measured as economic income generated by the services of companies, organisations and institutions provided throughout the maritime transport logistics chain— determines a port's importance as a generator of wealth and competitiveness in its surrounding area.

1.7%

GVA of Catalonia

1.1%

Total employment in Catalonia

Strategy and promotion

The networked Port

CONNECTIONS OF THE PORT OF BARCELONA WITH THE HINTERLAND

INLAND MARITIME TERMINALS

The Port of The Port Authority participates directly in five inland maritime terminals, or dry ports, which bring port services closer to maritime logistics operators and import-export customers from the territories it serves:

RAIL SERVICES

The networked port strategy also involves increasing the number of regular, frequent railway services and of different types of products with the Port, and developing them.

CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION OF PORT RAIL SERVICES

To build on its rail strategy, the Port of Barcelona participates in various organisations linked to developing and promoting rail services and the Mediterranean corridor such as Ferrmed, Rail Freight Corridor 6 UE, Railgrup, etc.

SHORT SEA SHIPPING SERVICES

The Motorways of the Sea (MoS) or short sea shipping (SSS) services represent an alternative to road haulage and meet the criteria of minimum frequency of three weekly departures and a maximum of three stopovers in different ports and are fully integrated into the networked port strategy. The Port of Barcelona currently has short sea shipping services with Italian and North African ports.

149,608 units

The 149,608 intermodal transport units (ITUs) recorded in 2020 translate into an identical number of trucks diverted from the road to the maritime mode, which is more efficient economically and environmentally.

Commercial promotion

PORT REPRESENTATIONS

The Port of Barcelona has eight commercial representations, which aim to consolidate and to monitor the networked port strategy in nearby markets and to strengthen and establish new relationships in distant markets.

> hinterland: Zaragoza, centre-north of the Iberian Peninsula, Madrid, Lyon and Toulouse (France)

> foreland: Argentina, China and Japan

PARTICIPATION IN FAIRS AND CONGRESSES

The goals of the Port's participation at commercial events focused on various areas of action are:

1) to promote, consolidate and position its strategic traffic;

2) to study market trends and the needs of users and operators first-hand;

3) to act as an umbrella for the Port Community by teaming up with companies to create synergies and add value and competitiveness to businesses in the sector.

The global pandemic has meant that many schedules have been altered and some of the participations planned by the Port have been postponed or cancelled or changed to virtual format.

information

The following events in which the Port planned to participate were also cancelled:
> XXIX Spanish Coffee Congress (Valladolid)
> Port of Barcelona Conference (Madrid)
> AECOC Transport Forum (Madrid)

TRADE MISSION BY THE PORT OF BARCELONA

Trade missions aim to promote and showcase the Port of Barcelona and its Logistics Community in different markets to generate and consolidate business and institutional links to help companies in Catalonia in their internationalisation drives.

Because of the pandemic, the 22nd Port of Barcelona trade mission had to change its initial destination, which was Thailand, and adapt to an online format. Thus, the first completely virtual mission organised by a port of the Spanish port system took place under the Port Summit Trade Mission Colombia 2020 brand.

Quality as a tool for competitiveness

The Port of Barcelona is focusing its efforts and objectives to achieve a level of efficiency and quality to allow it to stand out from competing ports while helping to make its customers more competitive.

The quality system

The Port of Barcelona's Quality system, managed by the Port Authority's Department of Goods and Quality Operations (DOMQ) has renewed its ISO 9001 certification.

information

The main actions performed by the DOMQ in 2020 were:

> Cooperation with the certified Port terminals or those in the process of certification in Reference Service Levels.

> Coordinating the Port's Quality team (QT) to monitor and establish actions to improve service provision at the terminals (vehicles, containers and Ro-Pax) and at the BIP.

> Monitoring and supervising the service provided by the QT for checking waste under the MARPOL convention handed over by vessels operating in the Port of Barcelona.

> Analysing data for improving the processes of the container terminals in the field of the Port of Barcelona's Specific Reference Service Levels.

Efficiency Network

Another tool used to achieve high levels of efficiency and quality of service is the Port of Barcelona's Efficiency Network Quality Label, which closed 2020 with 96 activities certified out of a total of 91 companies.

THE VALUES OF THE QUALITY LABEL

information

2020 was exceptionally marked by the covid-19 pandemic, which has changed certain ways of doing things. Actions around the Quality Label in 2020 consisted of:

> Holding non-contact events

> Postponing invoicing of the certification cost

> Conducting surveys to improve the promotion of certified organisations

> Launching a new Customer Service channel on Telegram