In line with France’s new national port strategy, Maurice Georges, CEO of Port of Dunkirk, Philippe Guillaumet, head of International Relations at the Port of Marseille-Fos, and Matthieu Vis, head of International and Strategy at Provence Promotion, reveal the opportunities for UAE’s maritime sector to leverage collaborative opportunities with France.
France’s new national port strategy
France and the UAE have long been partners. Given the many projects to come, the future continues to look bright for this high-level economic and technological partnership. The region’s highly dynamic maritime industry offers a wealth of opportunities for the French marine sector: port infrastructure or extension projects, operations of new vessels, maintenance and construction of dry docks in accordance with international maritime safety standards, and marine environment protection.
A key impetus is France’s new national port strategy covers all metropolitan and overseas French seaports and plans to increase the share of containerised freight handled by French seaports from 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050. Some of its key goals are to establish a seaport network out of business logistics chains, promote economic development and foster ecological and digital transitions.
By 2050, the number of direct and indirect jobs related to ports activity will be doubled and a key goal is to achieve carbon neutrality objectives in the field of transportation.
The maritime transport industry defied Covid disruption with faster recovery, according to Georges.
Maritime suffered similarly to other industries during the Covid-19 restrictions in 2020. “However, now we are doing better than recovering in the container segment,” he says.
In addition to its intrinsic resilience, the Port of Marseilles-Fos has a very strategic position, connecting European, African, and Asian markets via the Mediterranean Sea. Guillaumet says: “Despite the decrease in 2020, the Port of Marseilles-Fos had a robust growth at 9 percent in 2021, and has exceeded its previous record for containers goods traffic.”
Environmental investments in Dunkirk
From investments into battery clusters to hydrogen plant projects, and provision of electricity to vessels to avoid the burning of fuel, Dunkirk has a long tradition of being an energy-efficient port.
Highlighting key projects, Georges says: “We operate an LNG terminal and an unloading, storage and regasification plant in Dunkirk with an annual regasification capacity of 13 billion metric tonnes of gas.”
“Also, the ArcelorMittal factory in Dunkirk has recently announced a multi-billion euro investment to completely transform the port by replacing coal with electricity or hydrogen,” he adds.
Another project fuelling decarbonisation efforts is the 600-megawatt windmill for Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
A goal for carbon neutrality by 2050
Part of the pioneering efforts to combat climate change, Georges explains: “We are aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 by implementing actions in terms of sea, river and land transport, particularly by developing our containerised freight offer and opening up to the masses river and rail transport serving the port.”
In 2022, the Port of Dunkirk will be one of the first ports to have renewable energy produced by an almost 40 hectares of solar energy farm.
“We are organising future strategic networks for decarbonisation: power supply, CO2 hub, heat superhighway, and of course, hydrogen which will play a major role in our territory’s future ecosystem,” Georges says.
“The time is ripe for collaboration.”
Key transitions of the port of Marseilles-Fos
To foster UAE ambitions towards superlative logistics and port developments,
Guillaumet explains that size-wise at 10,000 hectares, the Port of Marseilles-Fos is one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean with world-class industrial/logistics clusters.
Underlying the port strategy are three key transitions: Economic transition, digital transition and green transition.
“The economic transition is looking for developing all kinds of low carbon logistics and industrial solutions, regarding digital transition, the port of Marseille-Fos is the seventh largest hub in the world for digital submarine cables connecting all the continents, developing a digital ecosystem with data centres and stimulating digital-related investment.
“To align with our green transition, we have a strong investment in hydrogen, cold ironing, projects for capturing/storing CO2, projects in photovoltaic farms, marine energy, etc.”
Provence Promotion helps support eco-transition in the Middle East
As France looks to enhance its ecological transition, opportunities are being created for Middle East companies looking to drive a similar narrative with French firms. Vis explains that Provence Promotion supports investors willing to expand their businesses to the South of France, free of charge and in link with Business France.
He adds: “We are part of the Mediterranean Sea, which is similar to Arabian Gulf in that both are semi-closed seas.”
According to the latest IPCC report, the Mediterranean Sea will be 20 percent more affected in terms of global warming; so there is an urgency to address this.
“Already, large corporations like TotalEnergies, ArcellorMittal, Lyondell Basell and Engie are investing altogether €2.2bn ($2.41bn) in terms of decarbonisation,” says Vis, who believes this low carbon economy in Provence is a shared goal of both France and the Middle East.
Creating momentum for digital and ecological transformation
According to Vis, digital transformation and ecological transition are two important business performance factors.
“We are addressing this need to train and to educate people, on the digital side and the environmental side of decarbonisation,” he says, with the state investing into institutions for maritime decarbonisation.
“For example, the shipping company with its headquarters in Marseilles; CMA CGM, is expanding its academy, Tangram, and will host the future national institute for maritime decarbonation to train people,” says Vis.
The second is the Port of Marseilles-Fos’ smart port initiative with its Brain Port Academy, enlisting academic experts. Another is La Platforme, a project about digital transformation set to train around 20,000 young people with its partners from the Big Marseille digital project.
Also, with 20 other ports around the Mediterranean, the Port of Marseilles-Fos created the Mediterranean Ports Association in 2018, which now represents 70 percent of the total traffic operating in the Mediterranean.
A simplified process for GCC investors to attract FDI
France is today the most attractive country in Europe according to EY’s 2021 Attractiveness Barometer. The country is undergoing a reindustrialisation, thanks to ambitious reforms including labour, tax, as well as simplification measures to speed up the setup of businesses in France.
In the framework of its recovery plan, France Relance following the economic impacts of the pandemic, the French government has rolled out an ambitious $113bn (€100bn) stimulus package to support the strategic reorientation of production models, businesses, to transform infrastructure as well as boost workforce training, and has recently announced a €30bn France 2030 Plan for innovation and industry.
“One international project being supported is a GCC based company which is currently investing in a green chemistry plant in Marseille,” Vis says, a €30m project which is benefitting from controlled platforms based on circular economy principles (shared utilities). In addition to this, he reveals they also have six ready-to-use turnkey sites of the total 127 ready-to-use sites in France.
“Some of these are in logistics, some in industrial zones; so we can definitely provide a simplified process for those investors coming from the GCC to invest right in France,” states Vis.
Time is ripe for collaboration
According to Goerges, Dunkirk hinges upon a three-pillar development based firstly on logistics development and smart, green automated warehouses. “Secondly, green and the new industrial development in Northern France, with three different projects for automatic batteries,” he says.
One area in Dunkirk will provide expertise, jobs, and new logistics.
The third pillar is green development of IT and transport; all of which will yield incremental value for overseas customers. “Dunkirk has plans to double the capacity based upon high-quality customer demand,” Goerges says.
Georges believes that a mutual exchange and sharing of experience, skills, and knowledge will mutually benefit both the UAE and France.
Further adding, Guillaumet explains: “If we want to win individually, we have to work together; this is why we want to develop cooperation with Middle East ports.”
And with UAE’s Net Zero 2050 Strategic Initiative, Vis adds: “With our very large port in Marseille, we share the same goal and are driving innovation, with disruptive technologies that are looking for more test grounds,” making it the right momentum for investment from the UAE.