Ladies and Gentlemen

First of all, I wish to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak at this Conference about short sea shipping in Europe.

Short sea trade has dramatically increased in the last years in Europe representing today about 40% of the total trade of goods. According to the Directorate-General VII of the European Commission, since 1970 short sea trade in Europe has been growing of 3,2% yearly, higher than the average growth rate of the whole sector of transport of goods.

In view of contributing to satisfy these increasing needs for short sea transportation the Grimaldi Group has made huge investments over recent years in new buildings, equipment, port terminals and human resources.

Eight new ro-ro/multipurpose vessels were ordered by our Group to the Fincantieri shipyards in Italy. Five of them, built in Palermo, will join Grimaldi & Cobelfret Lines for their routes from North Europe to South America and West Africa.

For our "Grimaldi euro-Med Service", three vessels, each of 51,700 GT, have joined in the last 12 months, the 35,000 GT sister ships "Fides" and "Spes", in operation since 1994. The m/v "Grande Europa" was delivered in March 1998, the m/v "Grande Mediterraneo" last September and the m/v "Gran Bretagna" was delivered last March.

These three Euro-Med vessels, built at the Fincantieri shipyard of Castellamare di Stabia, are the most technologically advanced of their type on the North European and Mediterranean routes. Fully computerised, they are equipped with 11 decks, two of them hoistable, and have a seed of 21 knots. A sophisticated system of inner ramps, fixed and hoistable, make these units suitable for the handling all types of cargo in nearly combination simultaneously.

However, in order to further satisfy the requirements of our clients we have evolved into a Multimodal Transport Operator and with the aim of improving the quality and competitiveness of our door to door services, we have also invested in road transport and have set up of a network of port terminals in strategic locations throughout the Mediterranean. Following this strategy, our Group intends to keep all costs under control by means of optimisation in the door to door transport chain whilst achieving damage levels close to zero through accurate and diligent prevention. In this way we can ensure a high quality standard in every phase of the logistic process.

Port terminals are an extremely important ring in the chain of short sea transportation. However, in order to be successful, they should be jointly managed by all the operators involved in the transportation chain: logistic operators, ship owners, forwarding companies.

Our Group has followed this philosophy in its effort to create a network of dedicated port terminals in the Mediterranean. We already run ro/ro-multipurpose terminals in Salerno, Palermo, Alexandria and Valencia which have all proven successful.

The Salerno Auto Terminal, with a surface of about 60,000 m², has an annual movement of over 200,000 new cars, but also several thousands of containers and trailers. Automar, a joint venture between Grimaldi and some strategic operators, runs a trucking company serving Fiat, Ford, Opel, Peugeot, Renault, Seat and VW. It manages a compound of 185,000 m² at Pontecagnano near Salerno, linked to road and rail and offering its PDI facilities to the main car manufacturers.

The Palermo Euro-Terminal (PET) has a surface of 15,000 m² and is used for the handling of new cars, ro/ro cargo, containers and general cargo to and from Sicily. In 1998, it has handled over 100,000 cars and several hundreds of containers. The recently created Valencia Terminal Europa (VTE), a joint venture between our Group and Spanish partners, manages since May an area within the port of 40,000 m² while Grimaldi Logistica España, a dedicated logistic company in charge of the Iberian market, is being established to flank VTE's activity.

Studies are underway for other terminals in Ireland, Denmark, the Benelux area, Portugal, Greece and Northern Italy. In the latter, we are currently in the process of study for the creation, with other important logistic operators, of a ro/ro-multipurpose terminal in Northern Italy, between Savona and Livorno. With a surface of about 100,000 sq. metres this new facility should be able to handle over 1 million cars yearly for traffic between Italy and other countries but also cabotage between the North and the South of the country.

Here, I would like to stress the point that operators willing to invest today in roro port terminals face enormous obstacles due to the attitude of Port Authorities who are almost exclusively interested in attracting the container trade. This has resulted in a proliferation of container port handling facilities throughout North Europe and the Mediterranean with the result of a serious imbalance between the demand and the supply of such facilities while there is a serious lack of adequate facilities for the ro/ro operators.

All the investiments made contribute to the strenghtening of the "Grimaldi Euro-MedService", our ro/ro and container service linking, on a weekly basis and at fixed-day sailings, 17 ports in 13 countries of Noth Europe and the Mediterranean. These ports are: Cork, Portbury, Esbjerg, Wallhamn, Antwerp, Southampton, Livorno, Malta, Piraeus, Izmir, Ashdod, Limassol, Alexandria, Palermo, Salerno, Savona, Setubal. Within the current year, Valencia will be added in the itinerary of the Euro-Med Service.

The Euro-Med Service directly links the peripheral areas of Europe, from Greece, Southern Italy, Portugal to Ireland, Southern England, Denmark and Sweden. Industries situated in these countries are put in the best possible competitive environment by giving them the opportunity to be in direct connection with the most important European and Mediterranean markets.

The "Grimaldi Euro-Med Service" is the most extended short sea service in Europe and the closest to the guidelines for short sea shipping issued by the European Commission. By being a valid alternative to road transportation it is an environmentally friendly service as it gives a contribution to the decongestion of European motorways from trucks and trailers and to the reduction of air pollution and the saving of energy consumption.

This effort was awarded by the Commission which granted us funding through the Pilot Actions for Combined Transport (P.A.C.T.) Programme, for the new operational combined transport project linking Cork with Northern and Southern Europe, through the introduction of a regular direct scheduled door-to-door container service using ro/ro multi-purpose vessels.

Besides the Euro-Med Service, the Grimaldi Group has made other efforts to improve short sea shipping in Europe. Since March of the current year a new regular maritime service for trailers links Italy with Spain as an alternative to road transportation. Ports linked are Livorno, Salerno, Palermo and the Spanish ports of Valencia and Barcelona. Trailers moving cargo between these two countries but also to and from Portugal and Greece will not have to be routed for thousands of kilometres through the congested motorways of Southern France and Northern Italy.

However, this new concept of cabotage in Europe and more generally short sea shipping will be successful only with a change in the way some ports in North Europe and Mediterranean are run. In short sea shipping, the weight of port and handling charges has a very high incidence on the overall intermodal costs. Therefore, the prerequisite for the successful promotion of innovative maritime services is to have cheaper and more efficient port and stevedoring services.

In many countries, ports still operate in a monopolistic environment, with high charges and poor services in terms of quality, labour rigidities and outdated regulations. This situation generates inefficiencies that threaten the development of short sea trade.

Everybody seems to be very sensitive to the protection of the environment. It is, however, a device to finance the railways creating distortions in the European transport market. Although it is proven that short sea shipping is the most environmentally friendly mode of transport it is penalised with indirect costs charged to the ships in countries which consider themselves environmentalist. For instance, light dues usually do not apply to the trucks or trains for the use of motorways or railways.

In Barcelona and other Spanish ports, the T3 charge on each unit (either ro/ro or container) loaded or discharged from a vessel is unfair for short sea trade as this additional cost does not apply to cargo moved by road or rail to and from Spain.

Stevedoring companies in several ports operate in an oligopoly which restricts the competitiveness of the service whilst in more efficient ports the same service is much less expensive and of the same quality. In some ports specific services, such as the lashing of cars, can only be offered by the stevedoring companies who charge the shipping lines very high fees.

Being an integrated part of the maritime transport system, ports must become cheaper, offer more efficient services and adapt their own infrastructure and tariffs to the needs of short sea trade which implies more frequent and shorter calls compared to deep sea trade. Ports can enjoy economies of scale and a better utilisation of the terminal spaces dedicated to the short sea routes.

In order to tackle all the above mentioned problems, the Grimaldi Group along with 7 other ro/ro carriers from the most important shipping nations of Europe have recently set up the High Level RoRo Carriers Action Group. This special committee whose Chairman is Dr. Emanuele Grimaldi acts within ECSA, the European Community Shipowners' Associations and intends to solve, through institutional channels, several problems that ro/ro short sea operators face in Europe such as port costs and inefficiencies, the GT/GRT calculation for ro/ro vessels and to promote short sea shipping focusing on its advantages in environmental terms.

There is no doubt that short sea shipping is a valid alternative to road transport. However, in order to efficiently promote it all players in the sector such as ports, stevedoring and forwarding companies, governments and the European Institutions must give their contribution to its viability.

I thank you for your attention.

SALERNO AUTO TERMINAL

• 60.000 SQ.M. SURFACE;
• 250.000 NEW CARS AND THOUSANDS OF CONTAINERS AND TRAILERS MOVED IN 1998.

PALERMO EURO-TERMINAL

• 15.000 SQ.M. SURFACE;
• 100.000 NEW CARS MOVED IN 1998 (INCLUDING FIAT EXPORTS FROM THE TERMINI IMERESE PLANT).

VALENCIA TERMINAL EUROPA

• 40.000 SQ.M. SURFACE;
• 150.000 NEW CARS WILL BE MOVED AT FULL CAPACITY.

• THE 35,000 GT SISTER SHIPS "FIDES" AND "SPES"
• THE NEWLY-BUILT 51,700 GT SISTER SHIPS:
  - THE M/V "GRANDE EUROPA", DELIVERED IN MARCH 1998
  - THE M/V "GRANDE MEDITERRANEO", DELIVERED IN SEPTEMBER 1998
  - THE M/V "GRAN BRETAGNA", DELIVERED IN MARCH 1999

THE GRANDE-CLASS THREE EURO-MED VESSELS PRESENT:

• A SPEED OF 21 KNOTS.
• TOTAL CARGO DECK AREA OF 34,000 SQ.M. FOR THE TRANSPORT OF CARS, COMMERCIAL VEHICLES, TRAILERS, CONTAINERS AND ANY KIND OF FALLETISED AND HEAVY RO/RO CARGO, INCLUDING VERY LARGE PROJECT VEHICLES.
• A CAPACITY OF 4,650 PASSENGER CARS OR 3,320 LINEAR METRES OF OTHER RO/RO CARGO OR 750 TEU, THEIR IDEAL CARGO INTAKE IS 2,500 CARS, 2,000 LINEAR METRES OF RO/RO CARGO AND 300 TEU.

DESTINATIONS ON THE NORTH EUROPE-MEDITERRANEAN ROUTE INCLUDE 17 PORTS IN 13 COUNTRIES THAT ARE DIRECTLY SERVED ON A WEEKLY BASIS AND FIXED DAY SAILINGS.
THE PORTS ARE: ESBJERG, WALLHAMN, ANTWERP, SOUTHAMPTON, ALEXANDRIA, LA VALLETTA, PIRAEUS, LIMASSOL, ASHDOD, IZMIR, PALERMO, LIVORNO, SALERNO, SAVONA, SETUBAL, CORK, PORTBURY AND VERY SOON VALENCIA.