• In her promise as new president of the Port Authority of València  Mar Chao called for the “collaboration of all” to gain agility and to face “the many and important challenges that Valenciaport is facing”
• María José Catalá, Mayoress of València, was in charge of welcoming the participants, and Carlos Mazón, President of the Generalitat Valenciana, closed the event. For his part, Álvaro Rodriguez Dapena, president of Puertos del Estado, highlighted the professional career of the president
• The event was attended by more than 200 people and was also attended by Darío Moreno, Mayor of Sagunt; José Manuel Prieto, Mayor of Gandia; and Pilar Bernabé, Government Delegate in the Valencia Region

 Mar Chao has been sworn in as president of the València Port Authority and in her promise of office she called for “the collaboration, effort and commitment of everyone to successfully tackle the many important challenges that lie ahead of us”.  According to the president, “you deserve our maximum effort and excellence in our management. And we will achieve success only if we all row in the same direction”.

Under the premise of “working tooth and nail”, Chao insisted that “Valenciaport cannot stop and has to be far-sighted”. The president of the PAV recalled “the complexity of the challenges: making the North Terminal a reality, improving maritime and land connectivity, increasing the share of rail transport by committing to multimodality, achieving our goal of zero emissions, continuing our commitment to innovation, as well as many others that will arise in the future, the result of listening carefully to all the actors involved in any new business initiative”.

The president of the PAV affirmed “there is no room for failure or passivity. Outside the fence, the world is moving very fast, it is very difficult to keep up, we have no seconds to lose”. Chao concluded by stating that, “from the Port Authority of València, we will work tirelessly to generate prosperity for our beloved Valencian Community and Spain, increasing the competitiveness of our customers through the efficient and sustainable provision of logistics and transport services, all without forgetting the environment, an aspect that is of paramount importance. We are an economic and logistic space, but we are also Valencia, we are Sagunto and we are Gandía”. He ended with a few words that sum up his idea of “rowing together” and which are a symbol of the union of all Valencians: “Valencians, en peu alcem-se”.

Unanimous request: North Terminal

María José Catalá, mayoress of València, was in charge of welcoming the new president, Álvaro Rodriguez Dapena also dedicated a few words to the new president while Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat Valenciana, closed the event.

At the opening, Catalá emphasised that “the challenges of Valenciaport must remain outside the political debate. The port is a tractor of industries and a tractor of companies, and we cannot put sticks in the wheel”. “We must complete the North Terminal, the Port cannot stop, it is our objective, together with the use of clean energies and decarbonisation”. The mayoress of Cap i Casal also stated that “we need a city that is open to the Port because Valencia is not a city without its Port, and the Port is not a Port without its city. The time has come,” she stressed, “for understanding”.

This understanding was also referred to by Rodriguez Dapena, president of Puertos de Estado, who insisted on the idea of the Port as a unifying agent. “Now it is the turn of the North Terminal, together we are going to achieve it”. “We generate a lot of prosperity in our environment, we have to open the port to the city, so that the citizens feel that the port is theirs, as a driving force for their well-being”.

For his part, the President of the Generalitat stressed the need to work together “the Generalitat Valenciana and the València City Council go hand in hand with Valenciaport. And we are going to work tooth and nail for the Port”. Mazón affirmed that “we are going to support the Port at this moment of crossroads and that the North Terminal is the first issue to be dealt with as it is a national issue, an issue of State and an issue for Europe and that is why we have to get down to work now”. The challenge, he said, “is to turn the new North Terminal into a matter of State, far removed from militarism and disputes between political parties. We need a date in a Council of Ministers”.

For the President, “the Port is the origin and destination” of the well-being and prosperity of València, the Region and Spain. “The Comnuitat has already demonstrated too many times that any strategic investment here is capable of exceeding the best forecasts”. To which he added that “we have to tackle all the challenges of Valenciaport at the same time, we have no other option, we all put pickaxe and shovel”. The event was attended by more than 200 people and was attended by Darío Moreno, Mayor of Sagunt; José Manuel Prieto, Mayor of Gandia; and Pilar Bernabé, Government Delegate in the Valencia Region, who accompanied the President of the Valencia Port Authority as she took office.