A Port for All: Valencia Port at the side of the companies but also of the most underprivileged people

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Valencia Port is committed to supporting every component of the community. Through financial aid, it has tried to support local companies; through its charitable foundation Aportem, it has distributed food aid to the most vulnerable people; through sharing videos on social networks, it has highlighted the professions on the "front line" against Covid-19. The Port authority of Valencia is an active member of AIVP since 1997 AIVP – How is Covid-19 affecting your region? What are the main consequences for port activities, especially the logistical and economic aspects? Vicent Palací, Head of Communication, ValenciaPort - COVID-19 is having a high impact in Spain, although the Community of Valencia is not one of the areas most affected by the spread of the virus in the country. The three ports (Valencia, Sagunto and Gandia) managed by APV, the Port Authority of Valencia, continue to work normally, adopting the health safety measures imposed, to guarantee individual supplies to the population. Port activity has never stopped. In fact, during March Valenciaport handled 430,000 containers, a figure representing a drop of 9.83% - due basically to the decline in movements of empty containers. This drop can be compared to a very significant fact: the Port of Valencia handles a large part of Spain's foreign trade and in this critical month the export of full containers grew by 2.86% over the same month in 2019. In economic terms, APV has put in place a series of urgent compensatory measures to palliate the economic effects of COVID-19. One of these is advanced payment to 260 suppliers to the port community to facilitate liquidity. By 24 April, APV had advanced 6.41 million euros; and this figure is expected to rise to 51 million euros during 2020. Furthermore, the reduction in port charges established by the Royal Decree passed on 21 April represent a reduction in charges of 6.2 million euros for this financial year; so we are looking at a total sum of 57.2 million euros that the Port of Valencia “has put…