“Today there is a reshuffling of global routes, with new routes and new flows. Following geopolitical tensions and structural changes in supply chains, even if volumes do not change”
Rome – The challenge for ports is played on land connections.“The central issue for the development of traffic is precisely the capacity of the infrastructure to support the necessary volumes. Today, to be truly competitive, connections must be by rail and not by road” explains Roberto Ferrari, CEO of the three Psa Italy terminals, Sech, Psa Genova Pra’ and Vecon, through which 25% of Italy’s container /export /traffic passes every year.In his speech at the fifth edition of the Shipmag Observatory on Ports–Analysis and reflections in memory of Francesco Nerli, entitled“Geologistica, new routes for new markets”,dedicated to “Geologistica, new routes for new markets”, Ferrari outlined the picture of the current situation and the prospects of the markets.
Today there is a “reshuffling” of global economic routes, with a phase of profound transformation of global trade, with new routes and new flows following geopolitical tensions and structural changes in supply chains, even if volumes do not change. The Mediterranean is growing faster than other regions of the world but to express its potential it must still fill the infrastructural gaps, starting precisely with traffic through Southern Europe, where the main critical issue remains the capacity of the rail network to support the increase in volumes required by the market.
The numbers explain the situation and the prospects. One train equals on average 50 teu and at the Psa Genova Pra’ terminal about 12 are handled per day, equal to over 4,000 teu per week:“To reach the goal of one million teu in the Southern Europe area – explains Ferrari –about 20,000 more trains per year would be needed compared to today: that would mean going from 12 to 67 trains per day. The investments are there, but the infrastructure is not yet ready. We need 750-meter trains and a Terzo Valico that does not stop at Tortona, but reaches at least the Milanese interports”.
The US tariffs introduced by the Trump administration are one of the elements that the global trade scenario has to contend with. “The era of tariffs has certainly impacted trade – underlines Ferrari – but it is correct to observe that it has not reduced volumes, rather it has accelerated an ongoing transformation, redrawing the geographies of trade”. Here too, the numbers help: China-US flows have fallen from 22% to 14%, from the pre-Trump to the post-Trump era, while intra-Asian trade has grown, from 38% to 44% and the China-Mexico route has recorded a +30%.“These numbers confirm that the economy moves faster than politics: supply chains have not stopped, they have reorganized – analyzes Ferrari -. This is why logistics has already recorded new routes and new services”.
The change intertwines with another phenomenon, that of reshoring and nearshoring, already underway for some time in global logistics dynamics, with the progressive shift of some production realities towards North Africa, Eastern Europe and Mexico, but it is not always about “core” productions, which largely remain in Asia, but often about “backup hubs created to reduce the vulnerability of supply chains, which emerged with crises like the Red Sea and Suez”.
In this framework, the market to watch for the future is the Mediterranean.
“The Mediterranean is today one of the highest-growing markets in the world, second only to intra-Asia, but the real challenge, as I said before, is on infrastructure so that it allows us to ride this trend.”
Among the emerging markets is India. “India has been growing at double-digit rates for years and forecasts continue to indicate solid expansion: a market that today moves volumes similar to Italy – says Ferrari –, but with 1.4 billion people. The relationship between population and container traffic clearly shows its potential and its future political weight in the global balance.” A dynamic also visible in Africa. But purchasing power weighs heavily in the game. In the United States, the report points out, the average daily expenditure is about ten times that of India or Nigeria, in Europe it is seven to twelve times higher.
“It is the increase in spending capacity that drives trade – observes Ferrari –. Countries like India will continue to grow, but will remain skewed towards exports until domestic purchasing power approaches that of mature markets.” After all, he recalls, the same path had already been followed by Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.
