Five centuries of existence, and a lot of ambition. After having celebrated in 2017, the 500 years of their city, built on order of François 1st, the leaders of le Havre (Seine-Maritime) are determined to accelerate the recovery of the port, the first in France to foreign trade. A plan of massive investment has been examined in this sense, Friday, march 30, by the supervisory board of the port. In the program, expenditure of € 610 million : $ 110 million to maintain and upgrade the current facilities, $ 500 million to create new ones. Only problem, Le Havre does not have the necessary money. It will therefore have to find the money elsewhere, and make choices.
“This major investment plan is very positive, but there is no question that the port launches the projects, run up debt and can’t repay then “, explains Luc Lemonnier, the mayor of le Havre.
“As the account is not totally, we’re going to have to establish priorities : what is being done in the next five years, that postpones-t-on after it ? “adds Hervé Martel, the director general of the port. In the immediate future, the professionals and the funders of the various projects will be consulted, in order to reach decisions at the end of June.
All part of the good news : The Haven is better. After a bad year 2016, marked by the strikes of the dockers against the law El Khomry, the activity is markedly to rise again in 2017. The overall traffic has increased by about 10 %, and 14 % for the only containers. An increase superior to that of many major ports throughout the world.
The 56th container port in the world
Le Havre has stopped dropping at the international level, removing the risk of marginalization looming. In a year, the city of normandy is even dropped from the 62nd to the 56th in the world ranking of container ports, according to the ranking established in march by Alphaliner. A sign…
