‘It’s not politics that makes success of a port, but as a politician you can facilitate’

Annick De Ridder picked India for her first overseas brand promotion trip after taking over as the Vice Mayor of the city and Chairperson of the board of directors of Antwerp Port Authority, which runs Europe’s second biggest port, on 7 January.

The first-ever lady port alderman belongs to the right wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest political party in the Flemish Parliament. BusinessLine spoke to Ridder on her role and vision for the port that employs more than 1,40,000 people, both direct and indirect, and is considered the main engine of the Belgian economy, generating an annual added value of 4.8 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Excerpts from the conversation:

It’s an honour to be the first lady Vice Mayor and Chairperson of the port. It’s not politics that makes success of a port, that is largely the merit of the port community of employees and employers, but a politician can also play an important role as a facilitator. My main priority is to ensure the port is ‘open for business’ and to promote Antwerp as much as possible and contribute to its growth in the future.

Antwerp Port is one of the biggest driving forces behind the economy of our country, generating an annual added value of 4.8 per cent of our GDP. As the Vice Mayor, it means you are also responsible for the future prosperity of the wider Antwerp region.

In that sense, the importance of this job should not be under estimated. Besides employment, the port’s appeal to investors is extremely important for the image of Antwerp and by extension all of Flanders.

For me, it’s a very important post. My goal is to keep the growth going, we had six years of growth in a row at Antwerp port. I want to help maintain the growth momentum but in a sustainable manner.

Protectionist, that’s not true. My party fiercely defends business-friendly international trade on the condition that it is fair and reciprocal. Free trade is crucial for our prosperity, especially for Antwerp which is situated in Flanders that has one of the world’s most open economies.

In fact, we need more international trade, that is both free and fair. Any attempts to curb globalisation are doomed to fail. But, where possible, we must curb the adverse consequences without paving the way for protectionism.

Sometimes you don’t have to believe everything you hear. Our party favours open market but we are severe on the security issues; so strong police policy, immigration policy, no open borders, so maybe that’s the confusion but we are very much in favour of international trade.

My party is strongly opposed to an open border policy. In the past, they just let everybody enter from outside of Europe. We stand for a strict but fair migration policy that is gentle on those who need help but tough on those who abuse it. What we need is honest, controlled and feasible migration.

We are in favour of an active migration policy like the Canadians, for instance, which focuses on labour and knowledge migration. Our only request is that if people wish to build a future for themselves in Flanders, they should also actively participate in our society, making optimum use of their competencies to help shape it with Dutch as the common language and a shared belief in our values.

This diversity and plurality are also reflected in our Party members with very diverse backgrounds. Cultural plurality is enriching and my Party as well as the port are good examples that shows this enrichment. In fact, there are 177 different nationalities living in Antwerp.

We don’t look into race or colour. We just look into how they can be part of our community, but you have to learn Dutch, you have to be part of our values and way of living, that is very important.

While digitalisation and automation are becoming indispensable from the point of view of gaining competitive edge, how do you plan to deal with its downside — risk of unemployment?

The digital transition will create plenty of opportunities. In my opinion, it will also create more jobs for the port. Digitalisation will bring change and above all growth for our port in the future.

Antwerp Port joined the NxtPort digital platform because data sharing and the optimisation of digital processes can lead to substantial efficiency gains, which in turn can attract additional investments and create more jobs.

For every job lost due to digitalisation, four new jobs are created through digitalisation, according to Agoria, the Belgian Federation of Technology.

Why is Indian such an important country/market for Antwerp Port?

The steady economic growth of India over the years and the prediction of an average 7 per cent growth for 2019 only confirms our belief that India still has a huge potential.

It’s a market we strongly believe in. We trust more in the stability of India, because India is a long-term partner. It’s a stable country for us, it gives stable business. India is one of our top ten maritime partner countries and volumes have been growing steadily.

In 2018, the maritime traffic between Antwerp and India was 7.033 million tonnes (mt).The volumes, unfortunately, went down by 2.2 per cent compared to 2017 mainly due to stabilisation of steel cargo. Due to import limitations on Chinese steel into the European market, India spectacularly increased its volumes of export of steel to Europe. In 2018, the steel volumes stabilised again, but the container traffic grew by 5.7 per cent, resulting in only a mild decrease in total volumes.

As a port authority, together with our sister concerns – Port of Antwerp International (PAI) and APEC, we are able to focus on many diverse opportunities in a growing economy such as India.

Via PAI, for example, we can focus on assisting the government and/or ports with consultancy projects. Via APEC, we can focus on expanding our training courses for port professionals in Antwerp or via our JNPT Antwerp Port Training Centre in Mumbai.

Following on our MoU with the Indian Chemical Council, we plan to bring a delegation of ICC to Antwerp Port and further elaborate on the means of collaboration in the chemical sector.

Pharma and healthcare, a growing industry on a global scale, is certainly also a cargo segment that we will further explore for possibilities to increase seaborne volumes.

Further, the increasing urbanisation and consequently the need for power and energy and the upcoming automotive industry will also offer opportunities to increase the cargo flows to and from Europe.

Not at this moment. We believe the JNPT Antwerp Port Training Centre has enough capacity to train professionals from other parts Indian ports or even from ports of neighbouring countries.

We plan to use the JNPT training centre as a regional centre, attracting professionals from outside India also.

The UK is the second largest maritime partner country for Antwerp Port. In case of a ‘hard’ Brexit without any deal on the table, there will be no period of transition and by consequence the danger of big chaos from March 30.

We would welcome a postponement of the Brexit date in order for the Customs authorities and the Federal Agency for Food Safety to have more time to increase capacity.

We also see opportunities from Brexit. Some companies who are now doing distribution into Europe from the UK will relocate to the European Continent and the large distribution facilities at Antwerp puts us in an advantageous position.

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