The President of Puertos del Estado visits the port of Ceuta

• The President of Puertos del Estado encourages the port community to promote the port of Ceuta both economically and socio-environmentally.
• Rodríguez Dapena has laid the foundation stone for what will be the new Maritime Station and has visited the new facilities of the Civil Guard in the Fishing Port.

March 3, 2022. The President of Puertos del Estado, Álvaro Rodríguez Dapena, has made an institutional visit to the Port Authority of Ceuta (APC) accompanied by its President, Juan Manuel Doncel Doncel, and its management team, as part of the round of meetings he is holding with the managers of the general interest ports of the State Port System.

The visit began yesterday afternoon with a working meeting with the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of Ceuta, where various projects and matters of special relevance that the port of Ceuta plans to implement were presented, as well as those already in execution, in addition to investments and planning for the coming years. This meeting allowed discussing the Interport Compensation Fund (FCI), which has proven to be a fundamental resource for the economic sustainability of the Port of Ceuta, serving as a facilitator to minimize the negative impact of the income lost due to fee reductions due to insularity, isolation, and ultra-peripheral location. These concepts have represented a significant loss in fee revenues at the Port of Ceuta in recent years, an amount compensated with the funds expected to be allocated.

After meeting with the management team of the Port Authority of Ceuta, the President of Puertos del Estado signed the honor book, and a visit to the port facilities followed.

This morning began with a visit to the President of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, Juan Vivas, and the Government Delegate, Salvadora Mateos. Subsequently, Rodríguez Dapena met with representatives of the Ceuta port community, encouraging them to promote the port of Ceuta both economically and socio-environmentally. During the meeting, the importance of the Delimitation of Port Spaces and Uses (DEUP) document for the Port of Ceuta was highlighted. It has already been approved by Puertos del Estado and sent to the Ministry of Transport and Urban Mobility for approval by Royal Decree. The DEUP will allow optimal functioning of port activities and ensure evolution and adaptation to the future economic demands of the City. Its goal is to boost economic, tourist, and commercial activity in the Port, improving access and new roads, as well as carrying out urban regeneration actions in the port area.

After these meetings, he visited the new facilities of the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard at the Fishing Port, recently put into operation, with an investment of around one million euros. Later, the inauguration of the start of the works of the new Maritime Station took place, a project that has already been awarded and whose planning and execution will be carried out jointly with Puertos del Estado for its financing. Although its budget is guaranteed by the FEDER community funds, the Port Authority of Ceuta has to face the total amount of the investment. This action, awarded for 16.5 million euros, will consist of the construction of a new two-story building, annexed to the current one, with an approximate area of 3,200 m². The project also includes various improvements to berths and access galleries 3 and 4. The forecast is that the work will last 24 months.

The President of the Port Authority highlighted the interest and importance of the new Maritime Station, which, as he said, will contribute to greater accessibility and safety for passenger maritime traffic by modifying and organizing the surfaces and buildings of the terminal, as well as the conditioning of dock No. 1 of Cañonero Dato pier, the acquisition of new gangways for the Maritime Station, and the new organization of parking lots around the maritime station.

From the APC, in coordination with Puertos del Estado, efforts are being made to create a favorable regulatory framework that guarantees the economic viability of the port, showing greater sensitivity to the special circumstances of the port authority of Ceuta. It has also been emphasized the need to introduce in the Law accompanying the General State Budgets, an allocation that manages to provide sufficiency to the effects derived from the isolation of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the consequences of the economic crisis that this aspect causes in the revenues of their port authorities.