Highlights

30 JUNE / 2 JULY 2008 ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL MISSION IN ISTANBUL

From 30 june 2008 to 2 july 2008, the economic and institutional meeting in Istanbul has been held, as foreseen in the MEDINTRADE project, jointly organized by Port Authority of Brindisi, Regione Puglia and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Maritime Affairs, with the support of the other partners.
On 30 June, partners attended the gala dinner offered by the province of Brindisi, in the framework of the PIT 7 economic mission, of which the Province is Lead partner.

Meeting with the Chamber of Commerce of Shipping
On 1st July, a meeting with the Chamber of Shipping of Istanbul (The Chamber of Commerce strictly dedicated to maritime affairs) has been held. During this meeting there have been (i) a presentation of the state of the art of the technologies for logistics and transport in Regione Puglia and in the Port of Brindisi and (ii) an exchange of information on the state of the Turkish port system, which has almost completed a process of privatization. Mr, Huseyin Ertan, Deputy-Secretary of the Chamber of Shipping explained the potentiality of the Turkish port system.
Regione Puglia and Port Authority of Brindisi explained the structure of the middleware, in phase of implementation, as a freight exchange which will be available to the users of the project area.
The Chamber of Shipping expressed its interest to the middleware and is ready to sign a Cooperation Agreement in order to diffuse the utilization of the software to the 7000 associated companies.

Meeting with the Director of Istanbul District Directorate for Maritime Affairs
During the economic mission, another meeting has been held, with the Director of Istanbul District Directorate for Maritime Affairs, Mr. Cemalettin Sevli, in which the goals of MEDINTRADE project has been showed and shared; the attending partners have also expressed the will to continue the cooperation created inside the project and to submit future project proposals together with the Turkish partners.
Mr. Sevli was particularly interested and confirmed the importance for the Directorate and for the Undersecretariat to create a project table for future collaboration among Italy, Greece and Turkey under the next European programmes.
The third meeting of the day has been dedicated to the visit to the Office of Monitoring traffic on Bosporus, carried out through VTS technologies.
During the presentation, there was a demonstration of the potentiality of the new implemented system and the presentation of a Class B transponder, of new generation, used in the area of Istanbul; this transponder is used for a greater coverage and a better control of vessels not subject to the SOLAS rules; the system created has been particularly interesting for Regione Puglia and the Port Authority of Brindisi, since they are developing new traffic control systems in the Ports.

Official launch for the VTS system
The MEDINTRADE partners have been invited by the Turkish Ministry of Transport and by the Undersecretariat of Maritime Affairs, to the official ceremony of the delivery of a ship for the control of the activities on the Bosporus strait and for the launch of VTS procedures, stage 3. During the invitation there have been a brief meeting between the General Secretary of the Port Authority of Brindisi, Mr. Nicola Del Nobile and the Ministry of Transport Mr. Binali Yildirim, who showed his interest for the newly established shipping line Cesme – Brindisi, which has been launched on 2 July.
The Turkish Ministry gave his availability to support further projects and initiatives on logistics and transport with Italy and in particular with the Puglia region.
Contacts with steel exporters associations have been started; they showed their interest to sign the cooperation agreements for the utilization of the middleware.

Medintrade mission to Turkey Agenda