The secretary general of the National Association of Stevedoring Companies, Pedro García Navarro, has participated as a speaker at the lunch organized by the Propeller Club Sevilla. A colloquium in which the president of the Propeller Club Sevilla, Javier García Senent, has also intervened and which has been introduced and presented by its secretary general, Manuel González.
During his speech and before thirty businessmen, García Navarro spoke about the future and the present of the stowage, emphasizing the need to improve the competitiveness of the sector through an adequate public investment policy and port taxes.
In this sense, the manager of the stowage company has defended "The need to lower port rates, since it is necessary to improve the competitiveness of the system to compete with other countries."
In this line, he said that "it does not make sense to continue with the current policy of port taxes that entails a consolidated annual result of the Port Authorities as a whole exceeding 250 million euros, so that a working capital has already been generated. higher than 1,500 million euros ".
Pedro García has questioned the current amount of port taxes and, in particular, the occupancy rate of the public domain that applies to port terminals, since "the excess of non-applied treasury shows that the amount of this tax is higher what companies receive. " Finally, García Navarro has insisted that "the public management of the ports should not lead to the generation of economic funds without a destination, nor the execution of non-productive investments, but rather these resources should be used to reduce the cost of the logistics chain "
The importance of the stowage sector together with the latest legal modifications and collective bargaining have been other issues addressed by the Secretary General of ANESCO.
Thus, García Navarro has stopped in the changes experienced in recent years following the ruling of the CJEU of December 2014 that forced a modification of the legal framework embodied in the Royal Decrees Laws 8/2017 and 9/2019 and the RD 157/2019.
"Once the legal framework is defined, advancing collective bargaining while maintaining a fruitful dialogue with trade union organizations is one of our priorities" added Pedro García who believes that "this negotiation is an opportunity to continue evolving the port stowage".
García has insisted on the importance of a strategic sector for the Spanish economy because 90% of exports and 60% of Spanish imports are developed through ports and the value of these goods represents approximately 35% of our GDP . Approximately, 65% of these merchandise require stowage and unloading services.
The companies that belong to ANESCO operate more than 300 million tons of merchandise every year, for all the Spanish ports. The employer of the stowage and reference association in the sector has 37 maritime terminals associated in different ports of the Spanish port system and their companies employ more than 75% of the workers needed to provide the service of handling of goods in our system port.
By last, Pedro García wanted to thank the invitation to participate in this forum of exposure, debate and reflection with professionals, companies and those responsible for the Port Authority of Seville.