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PORTS DES HAUTS-DE-FRANCE: THE ESSENTIAL UNIT
29th september 2016

Meeting in Lille on 28 September for the "Hauts-de-France Port Network Day", the region's freight operators and port infrastructure managers set out the guidelines of a new ambition:
to become the logistics hub of north-western Europe and join forces to make this shared ambition a reality.

In recent decades the stakeholders of development in the Hauts-de-France have put in place strong policies in the field of freight and logistics. Today, while the Hauts-de-France region is a logistics centre of paramount importance, its growth potential requires a strong new regional approach.
With this in mind, the Nord de France region CCI, the Picardy CCI and Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque decided to bring together all the region's port operators for the official launch of a collective strategy and the creation of a new entity:
"Ports des Hauts-de-France".

This "regional economic renewal" was launched on Wednesday 28 September with three aims:
• To affirm its status as a logistics region of European dimension
• To maximise the profitability of the Seine-North Europe Canal
• To build the sustainable movement of goods in the Hauts-de-France

1. TO AFFIRM ITS STATUS AS A LOGISTICS REGION OF EUROPEAN DIMENSION:
PORT OPERATORS COMMITTED

The Hauts-de-France region offers an outstanding network of facilities for goods transport.

▪ Leading sea port frontage of France
With goods traffic of 46.6 million tonnes, Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque is the third-largest sea port in France. The impact of this entity for the region is also significant with added value of 3.8 billion Euros and 24,000 direct and indirect jobs.

The Port of Boulogne-Calais, combining the ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer since 2015, is France's busiest port in terms of passenger traffic (nearly 10 million passengers a year), fishing traffic (36,000 tonnes a year), the largest European centre for processing and marketing of seafood products (330,000 tonnes a year) and the fourth for freight (more than 40 million tonnes in 2015).

The Port of Tréport can berth ships up to 120 m long and handles nearly 400,000 tonnes a year.

These platforms handle nearly 90 million tonnes of goods a year by sea, making the Hauts-de-France the country's leading maritime region!

▪ Dense network of waterway infrastructures connected to the waterway basins of northern Europe

The Hauts-de-France region has many first-class waterway sites.

The "Ports de Lille" entity alone has 12 bimodal (waterway/road) or trimodal (waterway/rail/road) sites, mostly situated in Greater Lille.
In 2015 this network of infrastructures handled a total of 6.8 million tonnes, with high growth particularly in container transport volumes.
This establishment of the Greater Lille CCI is thus one of France's largest inland ports.

Ports de Valenciennes, managed by the Seine North Europe / Escaut Docks Authority, handled 1 million tonnes of goods and 58,000 TEU.
2015 was marked by the opening of a new terminal that generated an increase of some 25% in waterway traffic.

The Delta 3 site handled 3,600 trains and 348 waterway barges in 2014. With 330,000 m2 of warehouse space, this infrastructure is one of the main logistics platforms in France.

The Port of Béthune and Ports de l’Oise complete this impressive line-up of port operators in the Hauts-de-France.

Over the decades, these structures have developed different types of partnership project to boost transport activities.

To this end, the Nord Gateway Trade Association, formed of Ports de Lille, Delta 3 and Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque, was set up to develop new transport services between these entities.

Today, to benefit from the immense changes ahead for the world of freight, all these operators are ready to ramp up their activity, with a brand-new organisation that can make the Hauts-de-France the logistics hub of north-western Europe.

2. TO WORK COLLECTIVELY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE SEINE-NORTH EUROPE CANAL

The freight and logistics sectors are set to experience major changes. Various projects, such as Calais Port 2015 and the opening of the Atlantic rolling highway, will significantly increase the logistics potential of our region.

But it is above all the excavation of a waterway infrastructure which could transform this region. By 2025, the Seine-North Europe Canal will connect the waterway basins of northern Europe with the Paris region and Le Havre.

The Hauts-de-France will then be in the heart of a sea-waterway loop going from Le Havre, through Paris and Lille, as far as Dunkirk, Ghent, Zeebrugge and Antwerp.

This European-scale project could generate the creation of some 10,000 jobs during the works phase, and nearly 50,000 once it is in service!

The Hauts-de-France wants to make the most of the quality and diversity of its transport and logistics facilities, and the future Seine-North Europe Canal, to affirm its position as a first-class logistics area.

3. TO MAKE THIS REGION THE REFERENCE IN THE SUSTAINABLE MOVEMENT OF GOODS: FREIGHT OPERATORS MOBILISED

The Hauts-de-France region already has a number of establishments working in synergy to encourage the development of sustainable goods transport and logistics, and in particular:

▪ Euralogistic Regional Centre of Excellence
The Euralogistic Centre of Excellence has been working for more than a decade towards the development of logistics activities in the north of France.
Euralogistic offers a range of services to the sector's SMEs, logistics infrastructures, institutions and other industrial hubs (automobile, rail, plastics, food industry, etc).
It conducts projects of various kinds (prospecting missions, operational actions, business consultancy and communication, etc) on topics relating to all the components of goods transport and logistics (training, consolidation, logistics Internet).

▪ Hauts-de-France Waterway Consortium
The Hauts-de-France Waterway Consortium is an association set up to support businesses and localities in the development of waterway transport. The historic role of this entity (allocation of subsidised loans to barge and boat operators) will very soon be broadened to include different subjects specific to the development of inland navigation and the regional waterway ecosystem.

- New solutions for rail freight in the Hauts-de-France with 2A2F

2A2F now federates 30 public and private partners who are committed to the development of rail freight in the Hauts-de-France.
From the Serious Games "Rail Freight for Dummies" to the impetus to revitalise rail facilities, 2A2F carries out concrete actions to drive the revival of rail freight in northern France.

As well as these entities led by the CCIs, the Hauts-de-France is proud to have many operators, actively networked and committed to the development of sustainable transport: the Greater Paris Design and Construction Association GERIF, professional transport and logistics organisations and associations (French Supply Chain and Logistics Association ASLOG, National Road Transport Federation FNTR, Transport and Logistics Association TLF), the Itrans competitive cluster, The Shippers' Club (Freight Transport Users' Association AUTF), and the Railenium technological research institute.
These different structures, working in unison, are now committed to making the Hauts-de-France the reference in sustainable logistics!

All the operators present on 28 September will join forces to develop new logistics activities capable of carrying forward the region's economic renewal.
At this event, the new union will be implemented by the signing of:

- the Partnership Contract between the Regional Council and the Hauts-de-France Waterway Consortium,
- the Protocol for the creation of the Ports des Hauts-de-France association,
- the Addendum setting out the terms of the new collaboration between Voies Navigables de France (French Waterways) and Ports de Lille.

28 September 2016: the starting point of a shared ambition for economic renewal in the Hauts-de-France

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