«A great potential to focus on is logistics, which however is behind other ports. When I say that we need to focus on logistics, I don’t mean to think that we want to change and distort the nature of this airport. Transshipment must be strengthened but we should be able, with everyone’s collaboration, to develop backport logistics and those containers that arrive in Gioia must be processed”. These are the words of the president of the Port System Authority of the Southern Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, Paolo Piacenza, in a recent interview given to our newspaper.
Piacenza did not go too far on why it never took off and how to strengthen logistics, but we can only note that since the port was born no one has ever wanted to create a real logistics hub in an immense rear-port area (which is also partly contested by CORAP which has not invested for years). First of all the terminal operators: exclusively dedicated to transhipment with the wealth that passes under the eyes of Calabria and then moves to Italy and Europe; but also regional policy, which in 30 years has not been able to invest in the right way in industrial areas.
We already start from an industrial context that is very behind the rest of the country, but in those areas everything is needed: before there were even decent roads and now they partly exist. There is no light and no fiber. The Port Authority recently participated in a tender from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to strengthen internet connections and we are waiting to know whether the project proposal will be eligible for funding. The fact is that no one invests in Gioia Tauro, because the area lacks an opening of the port.