The Italian Ministry for Agriculture has allocated 9.5 million euros to the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority, released from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Next Generation EU), to improve the sustainability of the agri-food chain supply across the Port of Vado Ligure.

The public funds are to be deployed in a 2-year investment plan designed to optimise agri-food supply management across the port, which ranks as one of the leading Mediterranean hubs in terms of the perishable goods and soft commodities market, namely, fresh fruit and coffee, with the full range of dedicated handling and logistic services provided by a selection of leading global terminal operators.

The projects to be financed include the upgrade and automation of the Port of Vado railyard and the digitalisation at the Faro port gate. The investment plan foresees the introduction of new technological processes to govern the monitoring and management of the railyard, thereby optimising the schedules of the incoming/outgoing trains from the port and, consequently, minimising the dwelling time of reefer containers, with perishable goods, on board the rail cars without the plug and play option to power the reefers. These new projects are set to improve the overall modal split at the Port of Vado, with a shift of the volumes of overland container traffic from road to rail.

The new planned intangible infrastructure has been designed to comply with the DNSH (Do No Significant Harm) principle, as per requirements of all projects funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

In addition, the range of new planned works funded by the Ministry for Agriculture are flanked by an investment programme implemented by the top terminal management companies, including the new multipurpose Vado Gateway, expansion at Reefer Terminal, the inauguration of a major new technologically advanced facility operated by Pacorini Silocaf Silos, new reefer warehouses at Frigo Genova and the new logistics food hub at V.I.O. (Vado Intermodal Operator).

Thanks to a combination of public and private investments, the Port Authority of the Western Ligurian Sea paves the way towards the establishment of an increasingly sustainable port.