• 7 min de lectura
• 7 min de lectura
The event was attended by over 60 participants, representing logistics and industrial companies, economic entities, and institutions from the provinces of Tarragona and Lleida, and Aragon.
More than 20 companies and institutions from Southern Catalonia are already part of this working platform to strengthen Catalonia's logistics leadership.
The objective is to explore territorial synergies to promote the logistics and industrial development of both regions and, at the same time, respond to the high demand for logistics activity currently concentrated in Barcelona.
This group, promoted by Port Tarragona, coincides with the presidency of the Barcelona – Catalunya Centre Logístic (BCL) association.
The Lleida-Tarragona Logistics Working Group of the Barcelona – Catalunya Centre Logístic (BCL) association held its first working meeting at the facilities of the Museu Casteller de Valls. More than 60 representatives from logistics and industrial companies, economic entities, and institutions from the provinces of Tarragona and Lleida, and the Aragon region, met to define territorial objectives and add them to the Logistics Agenda 2030. Among the attendees were the more than 20 companies and institutions that form the initial core of this platform to promote Catalan leadership in peninsular logistics.
The BCL Lleida-Tarragona Logistics Working Group, which was formally presented last June at the International Logistics Exhibition, aims to create territorial synergies to promote logistics development and, at the same time, deepen the ties between Lleida, Tarragona, Terres de l'Ebre, and Aragon to strengthen Catalonia's leadership and the positioning of the peninsular northeast as a reference logistics region.
The working meeting held in the capital of Alt Camp was attended and welcomed by the mayor of Valls, Dolors Farré, and served to present the mission and objectives of the BCL Association by its general director, Santiago Bassols; explain the objectives and action plan of the Lleida-Tarragona Working Group by Santiago J. Castellà, president of BCL and Port de Tarragona, and Joan Basora, head of External Relations of the Autoridad Portuaria de Tarragona; and discuss the logistics challenges of the Tarragona-Lleida-Aragon axis in a round table with representatives of the chambers of commerce.
"For more than 30 years, BCL has been working to improve the competitiveness of the Catalan logistics sector. We are very well positioned globally, as we are at the center of the Europe-Mediterranean-Asia axis, but we need to strengthen this position with infrastructure and actors from across the country. And this is where the Lleida-Tarragona axis plays a key role," explained BCL's general director, Santiago Bassols. He added: "It is historic that a BCL president is not from the Barcelona area. This has allowed us to give a very important boost to extending BCL's actions throughout the country."
In the presentation of the working group's objectives, the president of BCL and Port Tarragona, Santiago J. Castellà, explained that "it is about filling a deficit of representation of the logistics sector in the South and West and taking advantage of the dialogue space created with this group to network, exchange knowledge, contribute ideas, and transmit the needs of the sector." For Castellà, "we are at an ideal moment, with a great demand for logistics and transport spaces and services in Catalonia, which we can cover from Tarragona and Lleida, with new terminals and better infrastructure and road and rail connections. We have a great opportunity ahead of us that will allow us to create new value chains, strengthen our position as a key logistics hub in the peninsular northeast, and increase our competitiveness."
In this regard, Castellà defended the need to translate the objectives and interests of the Working Group members into actions within the Logistics Agenda 2030 in a territorial Tarragona-Lleida key. The meeting served to mark the steps to follow for the creation of a strategic document that diagnoses the current situation, identifies the main specific and tangible logistics challenges, and also includes an objective monitoring system for follow-up and periodic evaluations.
This document will collect the challenges and needs for the different nodes of the Catalan logistics system and, in particular, of the Tarragona-Lleida axis, from the point of view of road, rail, maritime, and air transport. It will also include actions in aspects such as the improvement of logistics platforms and urban logistics, without neglecting such relevant aspects as human resources, innovation, and sustainability.
Alícia Casart, director of Infrastructure Studies at the Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona, was responsible for presenting the strategic lines of the Logistics Agenda 2030 related to the territories of Tarragona and Lleida. Casart also explained that a period of reflection and contributions by the members of the Working Group is open to collect the contributions of each party for an analysis of the current situation and for the definition of common objectives and actions.
The first working meeting of this new Tarragona-Lleida group was attended by more than 20 companies and entities, in addition to some forty representatives from other interested companies and entities. Among them, representatives of the chambers of commerce of Tarragona, Reus, Valls, and Tortosa stood out, who led a debate on the challenges of logistics. From the chambers, special emphasis was placed on the need for investment in Tarragona's infrastructure, such as the duplication of the N-420, the improvement of the N-240, the connection between the A-27 and the AP-2, the Port's rail connections with its hinterland, or the reconversion of the Tarragona-Lleida-Zaragoza line into a high-capacity freight rail corridor. Likewise, they also emphasized the need for aid and investments to accelerate the decarbonization and energy transition of companies.
Also part of the working group and attending this first meeting were stevedoring companies such as Ership, Noatum Tarragona, PTP Group, and CEVA; logistics companies such as HUPAC, Arola, and Next Maritime; the Federació Empresarial d'Autotransport de Tarragona (FEAT); agri-food companies such as Vall Company; and service and technology companies such as SGS, Balanyà Eguia, Alcoridea, and Etecnic.
Barcelona-Catalunya Centre Logístic (BCL) is a non-profit association that represents all subsectors of logistics with a common goal: to consolidate Catalonia as the great logistics platform of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean.
BCL focuses its work on enhancing the competitiveness of the Catalan logistics system, through a vision that starts from demand to influence the continuous improvement of logistics services and infrastructure. The main axis of BCL is to promote logistics as a fundamental service for the productive and commercial activity of Catalonia and as a consolidated economic sector with a future projection.
BCL works to ensure that Catalonia's logistics commitment, which takes place in an environment of strong competition between territories, is positioned as a prominent hub in the network of the globalized and interconnected economy, since the logistics and transport sectors are a pillar of economic growth and are essential to guarantee greater competitiveness in costs and services and the maximum external openness of the Catalan productive structure.
To consolidate these objectives, BCL adopts an active position aimed at the constant improvement of the factors that affect the competitiveness of the logistics system, with special attention to infrastructure and its management and complementarity, but also to other factors that affect the competitiveness of companies (training, regulation, R+D+i...) in a way compatible with sustainable development from an environmental and social point of view and with greater integration of the four types of transport: Maritime – Air - Road – Rail.
