Antwerp/Flanders Port Training Centre opens Regional Training Centre at JNPT
Feb 07, 2017: Port of Antwerp and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) have joined hands to open Antwerp/Flanders Port Training Centre (APEC)-JNPT Regional Training Centre at JNPT. A memorandum of Understanding was signed in February 2015, in order to open this new training institute in Mumbai (JNPT, Nhava Sheva). The JNPT-APEC Port Training and Consultancy Foundation was inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander De Croo yesterday. The delegation comprised Marc Van Peel, Chairman, Antwerp Port Authority & Vice-Mayor, City of Antwerp; Kristof Waterschoot, Managing Director, APEC; Luc Arnouts, Chief Commercial Officer, Port of Antwerp and other representatives from Port of Antwerp.
Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander De Croo during his keynote speech emphasised the importance of international trade and collaboration. De Croo stressed, “People all across the world are concerned. They wish for peace, not war and conflict. They want progress, not economic recession. We need to build international collaboration and trade, rather than turning our backs on one other. What better way to do this than by strengthening the bond between our international ports and their industries? Ports are a link with the rest of the world. They have always been, and indeed will always be, a source of prosperity and development.”
De Croo added, “A focus on local economic growth is one of the priorities of the Belgian development policy. Strengthening people’s and society’s economic resilience is a crucial part of our development programme. APEC’s approach is aligned with this vision. By transferring knowledge, APEC allows other ports to boost their port activity and reinforce their local economy. In doing so they allow more people to benefit from economic progress.”
In his speech Minister De Croo also stressed the importance of digitisation. In doing so he referred at length to the leading role that the Port of Antwerp is playing in this area.
Informing about the training, Waterschoot said, “The Training Centre will train people from major ports, other ports and private ports on the aspects of port management. The session will have topics including general port management, container handling, quality management, commercial management, safety and security, environment sustainability and, will cover whole aspect of modern port management. This is a residential training programme with a batch of 30 trainees in one session. This year we are looking at atleast eight sessions.” APEC organises seminars, customised training and study visits on the subject. Over 14,000 people from 150 different countries have been to Antwerp over the last 40 years for some additional training.
In 2015, in terms of total freight handled, the port of Antwerp passed the 200 million tonnes mark and it handled a total freight volume of 214 million tonnes in 2016, a year-on-year growth of 2.7 percent. The Port of Antwerp had a traffic of 6 million tonnes from India in 2016 and has India in the top 10 list of countries in terms of business volume.