Puerto Dock Sud joins twelve fellow Central and South American port regular members
IAPH is delighted to welcome the Puerto Dock Sud Management Consortium to IAPH as regular member.
Consorcio de Gestión del Puerto de Dock Sud (CGPDS) is a non-state public entity, operating with its own economic and financial resources to administer, utilise and manage the various terminals and land-based infrastructure where it is located in the municipality of Avellaneda, Province of Buenos Aires, in the outer perimeter zone of the autonomous city of Buenos Aires. Puerto Dock Sud includes a major container terminal operated by Exolgan (who belong to Global PSA, also an IAPH member) which is the largest container terminal in Argentina. It also includes a petrochemical cluster with various operators, a dry bulk terminal and a multi-purpose cargo terminal. It aims to be an efficient, competitive, equitable logistics platform that is committed to the community and a key link in the logistics chain of international trade for the region.
Since 2020, Carla Monrabal has been the president of the Management Consortium, and has undertaken several initiatives to implement UN Sustainable Development Goals in practice. She comments : “After taking office, together with my team, we have focused on five key areas: community, infrastructure, sustainability, gender and security. Since then, we have implemented measures to improve port infrastructure, promote greater equity, adopt sustainable practices, strengthen port security and establish a closer connection with the local community.”
Concrete examples have included :
• An audit for the verification of the consortium’s carbon footprint, which involved verifying the tasks performed by the CGPDS are carried out in accordance with the standards of ISO 14.064, in order to put in a measurable plan to reduce GHG emissions.
• Contributions of digital infrastructure such as monitors for the modernisation and expansion of the central monitoring centre, the installation of the first fibre optic ring in the port area, CCTV infrastructure (intelligent cameras) and domes and scales for weighing trucks transiting through the port area. This is just as part of the integration of CGPDS into the Single Window for Foreign Trade in Argentina (VUCE) which aims at streamlining processes, speeding up response times and eliminating paperwork.
• A training-to-work program, which operates within the municipality of Avellaneda, province of Buenos Aires, and the Río Santiago Shipyard, with courses aimed at reducing the gap between women and men within the port — including for hands-on manual labor which even today is widely thought of as men’s work.
CGPDS has also been certified with eight of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals following a comprehensive capacity building programme with the consortium management’s stakeholders in cooperation with CIFAL Argentina, and is a participant in the #IAPH2023 Sustainability Awards.
Contact was first made with CGPDS when the IAPH technical director Antonis Michail attended the UNCTAD TrainForTrade conference on Energy Challenges and Digital Transformation of Ports, held in Buenos Aires Argentina on 20 and 21 March. The conference was co-organised and hosted by the Administración General de Puertos and the Argentinian Ministry of Transport and attracted more than 150 port professionals from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Spain.
Antonis Michail concluded “the recent incorporation of CGPDS into the IAPH family reflects on our efforts to reach out the Latin American ports community to join our inclusive efforts to impact energy transition, accelerate digitalization and improve resilience at all ports by sharing best practices and knowhow. From my personal visit to CGPDS I can see that Carla and her team have a lot of examples, especially in the areas of sustainability, where other ports elsewhere can learn from their collaborative approach.”
