Barely 20% of concessions requested the reduction of port fees due to the pandemic

MADRID, 24 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Court of Auditors has warned of the reduced request for approved aid for maritime transport to compensate for the drop in activity as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a level of requests of less than 20% in those related to the reduction of occupancy and activity rates.

This is one of the conclusions of the 'Report on the control of the application by the port authorities of the economic reactivation measures in the transport sector during the 2020 financial year and its impact on the strategic planning of the state port system'.

These measures consisted of the elimination of minimum traffic within the occupancy concessions, the reduction of the occupancy rate and the activity rate, exemptions and reductions in the vessel rate and the deferral of tax debts, among others.

As stated by the Court in its report, collected by Europa Press, the total cost of the economic reactivation measures in maritime transport amounted to 53.6 million euros, with 20.7 million corresponding to the reduction in income from the rate of occupation, 14 million to the elimination of the minimum traffic requirement, 11 million to the reduction of the activity rate and 7.8 million to the reduction of the vessel rate.

For the reduction of the occupancy rate and the activity rate, the port authorities received, respectively, 20% and 17% of requests with respect to all the existing concessions at the beginning of the declaration of the state of alarm.

A small percentage, warns the supervisory body, which explains this situation by the dependence of predominant sectors in each port, determining the volume of traffic and activity, without the effect of the pandemic being uniform in each of them.

Concessions related to port-city interaction experienced a greater impact, together with concessions related to passenger traffic, compared to industrial and logistics activities, whose activity was not particularly reduced, maintaining the level of traffic.

The concessions for industrial uses and repair and maintenance of boats, the Court points out, could not benefit from the measures because their production cycle goes beyond the financial year, so the decrease in their activity would end up being in 2021 and subsequent exercises.

The health crisis caused a drop in port traffic of 72% (63% in regular transport and 97% in cruise ships), while the contraction in freight traffic remained at 10%, this decrease being minimal, of 1% , in the transport of goods by containers (conventional goods and bulk fell by 15%).

To access the fee reduction, the applicant had to demonstrate a reduction in their activity of more than 10%, although the impact of the pandemic was not homogeneous. On the other hand, the Court states that the first regulation gave the port authorities doubts about how to apply the reduction in the occupancy rate, delaying the processing of the first applications.

Likewise, given the scant regulation of activity and occupancy rates, their application ended up being unequal between different port authorities, although each of them, internally, treated reduction requests homogeneously.

That is why the Court recommends approving a new regulation of the port system with more normative precision, including objective and uniform criteria to prevent indeterminate concepts from allowing unequal treatment between port authorities.

On the other hand, it considers it convenient that the State Ports approve guidelines applicable to the construction of new infrastructures in order to take into account the impact on projected infrastructures of the activity and the port capacity of the surrounding ports.