SPC Belgium

In April 1998 the Shortsea Promotion Centre Flanders was established under the umbrella of Promotion Inland Navigation Flanders.

In September 2000 a market prospector was recruited. The promotion carried out by the Promotion Centre is based on a business plan (currently for 2007-2010) and focuses on those activities that have their point of departure or their destination in Flanders. This includes both port/port and door/door loading and unloading activities, as well as sea-river traffic.

The Promotion Centre has a neutral and non-commercial status and acts as a go-between who brings concerned parties around the table. By consistently positioning itself in that way and by its extensive networking, the Promotion Centre has become the information centre for questions concerning intermodal door/door transports. In the mean time, road haulage operators have also become a party interested in cooperation (“synergy”) with shortsea shipping, as they too increasingly experience problems with the contractual obligations concerning delivery times.

The rather strict notion of “modal shift” has meanwhile evolved towards the concept of co-modality, introduced by the European Commission. In that new notion the merits of each transport mode are assessed and that way the logistic chain is composed.