This was a considerate opinion of Acting Chairman of the state enterprise (SE) Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) Raivis Veckagans: “Smaller ports should be transformed into the municipal ones and employed by cities as a part of infrastructure to develop business and tourism”.
He maintained: “I believe the Ukrainian smaller ports development ought to progress towards the notion of a municipal port. It is possible to consider the issue of the smaller ports transfer to local authorities since they fail in fact to perform as ports yet could be still used by the city’s infrastructure as its part for promoting business and tourism”.
According to him, Skadovsk and Ust-Dunaisk are not going to see the cargo flow rise as good as the bigger ports, however some absolutely different functions could be successfully employed like marina & yachting services, cruise and touristic business etc. And the municipalities, by Mr Veckagans, are able to cope with all this on their own.
“I’m sure the local authorities should also be involved in the bigger ports management and development. Particularly if speaking about Mykolaiv or Odessa where the ports are too much integrated into the city’s infrastructure and lack the areas of their own to expand. The municipalities possess land resources, while we have harbours and strategic infrastructure. Such a tandem is what would enable the city and the port to develop in full considering the concerns of all stakeholders”, added Mr Veckagans.
It’s worth to note that this idea had been first expressed by Paul van Eulem, Director of Maritime & Transport Business Solutions (MTBS, the Netherlands) in his interview to CFTS on 06.12.2018.
https://cfts.org.ua/news/2019/07/23/malye_morskie_porty_mogut_peredat_gorodskim_vlastyam_dlya_razvitiya_turizma_54346
https://cfts.org.ua/articles/vzglyad_iz_es_chto_izmenilos_za_tri_goda_v_ukrainskikh_portakh_1487