The works in the inland navigation channel, in the maneuvering basin, in the quays and terminal of the port of Portimão will really advance. In all, there will be "almost 20 million euros of investment, all of it public investment, about half from national sources (Port of Sines) and the other half from community funds, which are also already guaranteed by Compete", he announced yesterday, in Portimão, the Minister of the Sea.
at the ceremony of constitution of the Installation Committee of the new entity «Portos do Algarve», which brings together the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL), Docapesca and the Administration of the Ports of Sines and the Algarve (APS) in a new model, decentralized for the region, for the management of commercial and recreational nautical port infrastructure in the Algarve, Ana Paula Vitorino he stressed that “in principle, what is foreseen, unless there is a change defined by the region, is that, in relation to Portimão, a much greater focus should be given to the cruises. It will be a strong bet in the increase of cruises, more than tripling the passengers, in the horizon until 2030».
What the government official classified as a "very strong investment" in the Port of Portimão, will be completed "by 2020" and there are already defined deadlines: "in 2017 and 2018, studies and projects will be carried out, and between 2019 and 2020, they will be carried out the constructions".
Despite this strong commitment to Portimão as a cruise port, this infrastructure will also maintain its status as a «commercial port, that is, for goods», guaranteed the minister.
For more because, for the dying Commercial Port of Faro, where there is no longer any movement of goods since the Cimpor cement factory stopped working, the plans are for a profound change in its vocation.
«As for the Port of Faro, the issue is different», said the minister. “What is on the table is a proposal to transform the commercial port into a marina area, linked to recreational nautical activities”. This will be precisely a matter that "will have to be analyzed within the scope of this new entity, whose Installation Committee has now been created," he added.
While in the Port of Faro what will be done there is not yet matured and it will be discussed precisely by the Installation Committee of the «Portos do Algarve», in Portimão the work has already been promised and announced by the two previous governments.
What is expected, according to the data presented yesterday, is that the cruise port can receive ships up to 272 meters in maximum length, as well as the enlargement of the access channel to 230/250 meters, the enlargement of the rotation basin to 485/500 meters, at an elevation of -10 m ZH, as well as interventions in the navy pier to ensure dredging, as well as the creation of two pier fronts measuring 330 and 180 meters.
By improving the accessibility conditions and the reception capacity of cargo and passenger ships at the Port of Portimão, it is estimated that there will be 17,1% «impacts on the local and regional economy» (VAL-E of 22,4 million euros), an increase in demand by 165 thousand passengers per year (from 15 thousand people today to 180 thousand in 2030/2035) and an increase in stopovers of 140 per year, thus increasing from the current 50 stopovers to 190 in 2030/2035.
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