THE PORT OF LIÈGE
[EDIT/LOG: Liège, July 30] Liège is trimodal so you can transfer from barge to truck and train and also to the airport. Another option on the horizon is that of the linking of high-speed trains, the TGV, with air transport. Add to this its being the first Belgian inland port, third in Europe, and a port located in the hinterland of European and North Sea ports; 24 hours by water from Rotterdam, 14 from Antwerp, 24 from Zeebrugge and 48 from Dunkirk. And as the stats show, everyone is beginning to get the message. The port employs 11,800 and there are another 16,280 indirect jobs. It produces 15% of the GDP of the province of Liège, 3.3% of the Walloon country, and 0.8 of Belgium itself. There are quaysides, covered docks, short-shipping lines to the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. There is a roll-on/roll-off quay and accessibility to push convoys up to 4,500 tons and coasters up to 2,500 tons. There are also storage oil tanks, 200,000m3 of them, on the wharfs. There are cranes, silos, sand and gravel stocking capacities. It is a reliable, safe and secure solution with a covered dock and the new trimodal port on the horizon - Trilogiport with 100 hectares. Eighty per cent all consumer goods arrive in containers. In 2009, the figures from Asia were: 2.5 million TEU to Rotterdam, 0.9 million TEU to Antwerp, 1.03 million to Zeebrugge, and that’s only part of the story. There are areas of focus. There is a focus on life sciences, particularly in Liège, and the agro-food industry, mechatronics, and transport logistics and aeronautics. These are the areas in which the Walloon country is competitive and supported by its Marshall Plan. Why Liège? It’s got the airport. It’s near the high-speed train. It’s got a successful full-cargo strategy. There is the express courier TNT on site. There is the Marshall Plan, just discussed, and a range of transport and logistics companies. And it is also interesting in terms of employment, image and is internationally competitive. It is no wonder that Belgium chose the Port of Liège as an introduction for members of the European Council. And on top of all this, the hardware, the trains manufactured by Alstom or Siemens, are not far away either. The future looks bright, and the sun reflects back gently on the rippling water. SW
A recent trip on the unruffled waters of the Meuse to see various aspects of the Port of Liège demonstrated first of all that this was the way to travel, because it was comfortable, one could see the port from a different angle and also have something nice to eat at the same time. There are lots of differences, though, between river transport and other forms of logistics and some of them have to do with hard facts and figures. For example, the number of vehicles needed to transport 4,400 tons of goods is 250 trucks or one barge. The distance covered using five liters of gasoline is 6.6km for an aircraft, 333km for a train and 500km for a barge.
In addition to a European Center for Biologistics linked to Memphis and Singapore, the cargo rail express, which will transfer goods between air and rail means that the average speed of rail transport in Europe at 18km an hour can be raised to 300km per hour with the use of the high-speed train.