GENOA – “We are the mirror of what happens to Italian industry; if it grows by 0.1%, container growth is that. A terminal may grow more perhaps due to Alliance reorganizations, but that is the volume of containers in Italy, so growth is based on the industry’s situation and we are its mirror.”
Saying this is Roberto Ferrari, CEO of PSA Italy, the leading gateway container terminal operator in Italy, the company that handles 25% of the national container volumes in import and export. Ferrari spoke to Corriere marittimo on the sidelines of the PSA Italy Christmas Cocktail, the company’s usual pre-Christmas gathering, held this year at Palazzo Ducale. It was preceded by a press conference, held that same morning in the offices of the Pra’ terminal.
At the center of the conversation was the relaunch of the Industrial Plan with the private investment by the company, 1 billion euros allocated to the two Genoese terminals, Psa Genova Pra’ and Psa SECH, following an “unfortunate” period of two years of mandatory stand-by due to the receivership of the Western Ligurian Sea Port System Authority, now unblocked by the arrival of the president, Matteo Paroli.
How is the year ending, what is the situation at your terminals?
“We have healthy companies that work well. In Venice we have a particular situation, we are not the only ones growing but also the other terminal, so it is a structural growth of the port, it is a positive signal meaning that in the northeast the situation is quite good” – The reference is to the industry in the national northeast – “This is another positive signal we see in the market.
Having positive situations in Italy, the Group has decided to make new investments, to work on modernizing the plants, having technological updates for new equipment; in fact, next week the first cranes will arrive, both in Pra’ and in Venice.”
This refers to the delivery of the 6 new fully electric E-RTG cranes, produced by ZPMC, destined for the Genoese terminal of Pra’, and 3 cranes of the same type for the Venetian terminal PSA Venice-Vecon, part of a plan aimed at improving yard efficiency and significantly reducing environmental impact.
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“Next week” – continues the CEO of PSA Italy – “we will load in Shanghai another 2 ship-to-shore cranes for SECH and another 6 yard cranes for Pra’. Therefore, the investments are moving forward because we believe in Italy and the Italian market.”
PSA SECH, after completing the remote control process for the new KUNTZ rail equipment, inaugurated in April 2025, is preparing for the 2 new ship-to-shore cranes, expected to arrive in February 2026.
Speaking of investments: regarding the Industrial Plan, where are we? President Paroli, interviewed by Corriere marittimo, spoke of “two months,” can you explain better?
“We presented the Plan last year already, we lost two truly unfortunate years with the System Authority: receiverships, changes of commissioners, all the known events. Now finally we have a president with whom we have set a two-month goal, during which the application is studied to then enter the go-live, the actual work. because some works also impact the System Authority.
We need to carry out dredging, so we need to collaborate and also to engage with the System Authority.
You have also requested the engagement of the government and politics on this Investment Plan
“Yes, with such an important figure”– 1 billion euros– “it would be an investment of national strategic importance, so the government should be involved anyway. But it remains that the figure, the billion, is ours, meaning put up by the private company, and it will serve precisely for a technological update to give a future to the plants, to make them competitive in the long term. It is in the DNA of our organization to make long-term investments to have competitive plants in the long term.”
You announced that this year there has been a progressive concentration of volumes on larger ships. In October, according to Drewry indices, ships in the port of Genoa had waiting times of almost three days. Is there a correlation?
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“This phenomenon of gigantism has been further amplified after the model changed from the Far East passing through South Africa. This year too we have had fewer calls with more volume per single call, this obviously creates continuous peaks and troughs, creates problems for the terminals but above all for the landside chain: for hauliers and rail operators.
But we also have another phenomenon, because now it is no longer just the Far East and China trade. With the new logistics setup, where the Mediterranean is growing, other markets are growing because other production market centers have been created.
Before, logistics had become too fragile; anything that happened over there had an impact here too. So centers were created in Eastern Europe for the European market and for North Africa, while in Central America or South America for the United States. We see ships no smaller than 24 thousand teu in Africa, or 16 thousand teu for South America, this phenomenon of ship gigantism is continuing even on trades that were previously considered secondary and are now becoming primary.
The area growing the most in the world is Intra-Asia and the second is Intra-Mediterranean, it is a trend that has been going on for several years and will probably continue in the coming years.”
The situation of international trade is increasingly unstable and you terminal operators have to manage situations of great instability.
“Unfortunately we have rigidities because we need to plan resources long-term, but we are dealing with this market which is increasingly discontinuous. Even if now shipowners are timidly trying to fix things, however, if Suez reopens, we will significantly have another period and another disruption to rearrange all the networks which will recreate another moment of congestion, to rearrange the entire logistics chain again with another setup, with another completely different configuration.”
Some moments of the “PSA Italy Christmas Cocktail” held on December 3rd in Genoa, at the Palazzo Ducale
Roberto Ferrari, ceo PSA Italy,
from left. The president of PSA Italy, Marco Conforti, the Regional Councilor for Employment Policies of the Liguria Region, Simona Ferro, the ceo of PSA Italy, Roberto Ferrari. Some moments of the eveningSome moments of the evening
