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More than 900 delegates and accompanying persons from across the world attended the 29th The International Association of Ports and[ds_preview] Harbors (IAPH) World Ports Conference in Hamburg, Germany, 1–5 June, under the conference banner theme of »City of Hamburg – Calling at the smartPORT«.

Hamburg Port Authority (Jens Meier, Chairman of the Management Board), the conference host, provided the stage for the debate on where the port industry will be heading in the near future, covering such topics as megaships and their impacts, trends of the global economy, global port competition, clean port air solutions, cruise, etc. The discussion was enriched and reinforced thanks to a wide variety of first-class guest speakers representing terminal operators, shipping lines, logistics service providers, transport consultants, futurology, politics, science, etc.

As in previous years there were many honourings during the conference. The Port of Beirut, Lebanon, won the IT Award for its contribution »Port of Beirut Operations and Management System (POMS). The second place was taken by the Port of Barcelona for the presentation »From a Paperless Port towards a Smart Port« and JadeWeserPort Realisierungsgesellschaft, based in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, took the third place for »Smart SC – eBusiness Standardization in the maritime Supply Chain«. This year’s Port Environment Award was won by the Port of Santa Marta, Colombia, for the project »Environmental and Operational Benefits from the Technological Renovation of the Port Authority of Santa Marta«. The second place went to JadeWeserPort Realisierungsgesellschaft for »Langwarder Groden (coherence zone for a deep-water port)« and the bronze medal in this category was awarded to bremenports, Germany, for a project titled »Innovative new building of a LNG-powered dredging barge in ports of Bremen and Bremerha­ven«. Winner of the Port Communication Award was the Port of Gothenburg, Sweden, that referred the Port of Stockholm, Sweden, and the Port of Longview, US, to the ranks.

In Hamburg the IAPH also presented the election of the president and the confirmation of the vice presidents. Santiago Garcia Milà was unanimously elected as the new president. The deputy managing director of the Port Authority of Barcelona is the successor of the Australian Grant Gilfillan, who retired as scheduled from office. Gilfillan was nominated for his contributions to the IAPH an honorary member.

Garcia Milà will be supported by the vice-presidents Geir-Eilif Kalhagen (Port of Longview), Richard Loost Lino (Indonesia) and Hien (Abidjan Port Authority, Ivory Coast). The new president is to modernize the structures of the association as the IAPH always posted a slight decline in membership in recent years.

The 30th World Ports Conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia, on 7 to 12 May 2017.