The privileged geographical condition of the port of Catania also reflects on the regional territory, it is sufficient to think that it serves a terrestrial basin represented by six provinces and a global population of three million inhabitants.
Other fundamental characteristics are represented by the different activities performed inside the port: commercial, cruise, shipbuilding, fishing and yachting activities, both recreational and sport.
Its proximity to the railway station, the underground, the airport, the dry port and the agro-food center and the easiness in reaching the territorial road and railway network gives the port of Catania a peculiarity unique all over Sicily: the “Centrality”, that Catania owns not only as a metropolitan city, but also as an intermodal network system. In less than ten minutes it is possible to reach the central railway station, the freight yard, the dry port, the agro-food market, the airport, the “Circumetnea” railway station, the industrial area and the Etna commercial district.
Its main activities can be summarized as follow:
Commercial: the port of Catania closed the year 2014 with a total of 6,791,191 tons of goods (rolling stocks, containers, parcels, dry and liquid bulks) with a percentage increase equal to + 16.13 points with respect to the previous year (5,847,707 tons). This rank the Etna seaport first in Sicily as far as the movement of “dry goods” is concerned. This positive growth trend which has characterized for many years the commodities traffic of the port of Catania, derives from an accurate planning and the use of equipment specialized in each specific productive sectors, that allowed the Etna seaport to work with competitive costs and high productivity.
In this scenario, major developments have been registered in the containers sector that thanks to the connections with the big transshipment “hub-ports” in Gioia Tauro, Malta and Cagliari, reached a total movement of 33,162 Teu’s, equal to an increase of + 37 percentage points compared to the previous year, while only in the first semester of the current year, compared to the same period of last year, it has already registered a further increase equal to + 49 percentage points, that makes Catania the first Sicilian seaport as far as the container section is concerned, that primarily serves the hi-tech, building, food and manufacturing industries, as well as the tertiary large-scale retail trade, which are located in the Catania industrial area, ten minutes far from the port.
Also the sector of the Roll-on and Roll-off ferries positively increased. The traffic segment of the “Motorways of the Sea” elected Catania as a natural “hub” network connection with the Northern part of Italy, both on the Adriatic corridor (Ravenna and Brindisi) and on the Tyrrhenian one (Naples, Salerno, Livorno, Genoa, and Savona) and with Malta. In the first semester of the year 2015, this segment produced 3,223,670 tons of commodity-related movement, making Catania the fourth seaport in Italy with an increase percentage equal to + 6.8 percentage points.
Cruise: it’s the only traffic that registered a decline in 2014, with a total number of 232,954 passengers, against the 390,457 of the year 2013. Due to the “Islamic spring” many cruise companies initially preferred to choose the cheaper Middle East ports. Then this trend rapidly changed because of the renown geopolitical facts. We would like to highlight that, since his first months of assignment, the new government-appointed Commissioner started, thanks to a jointed action with the mayor of Catania Enzo Bianco, a strong relaunch action, which results are already evident with an increased forecast in the number of ships and passengers. The year 2016 should overcome the present year, with the return of the “Costa Crociere” and “Royal Caribbian” cruise operators and the scheduling of latest generation ships, thanks to the deeper draught of the new “multipurpose artificial wet basin”, inaugurated in July 2015.
Yachting: The creation of the tourist marina will insert the Etna port in a competitive Mediterranean circuit. The geographical position of Catania and of its port along the possible Mediterranean routs, its strategic proximity to the airport and the possibility to use the boat eight months a year, are surely the strength points of the Etna seaport.
Technological: “Elettra Tlc Ltd” a hi tech industry of the Telecom France group, settled in the port of Catania, the only telecommunication submarine cable laying present in the Southern Mediterranean basin, guaranteeing the mooring of two of the most modern ships specialized in the laying and handling of cables in the entire Mediterranean basin, Red and Black seas.
Scientific Research: The National Institute of Nuclear Physics “INFN”, assembles optic sensors to instrument some detection units, to realize the biggest underwater telescope in the world for discovering high energy astrophysical neutrinos. The Institute manages a cabled underwater infrastructure that it laid off the coasts of Catania at a depth of 2100 meters below sea level, 25 km far from the coast, which data, integrated with those provided by the National Institute of Geophysics INGV are used for scientific purposes, but also to comply with the EU directives relating to the “Marine Strategy”.
The National Institute of Geophysics “INGV” acquires data from the underwater station SN1 placed off the coasts of Catania connected to the underwater infrastructure of the “INFN” Institute for scientific purposes. Furthermore, the underwater station SN1 is the first EMSO active node and it represents the first infrastructure for the real time analysis of earthquakes in Italy placed in deep water. Furthermore, SN1 is the first active station in Italy for the Early Warning Tsunami, owned by ALMA MATER a company based in Bologna. In addition, through a Junction Box installation it is possible to perform a series of scientific experiments within the EMSO Medit and the EMSO projects, for the real time monitoring of the oceanographic parameters and of the water column.
Both “INFN” and “INGV” are working to create a Joint Research Unit along with the major Italian Research Promotion Institutes and the Catania site will become one of the main JRU operative underwater site, besides already being a strategic EMSO hub.
The new artificial Wet Basin and the port-city interaction: with the completion of the commercial Wet Basin for the Ro-RO and container traffic, the port of Catania finishes the first phase of the big seaport infrastructure process and starts the second phase aiming at improving, rationalizing and strengthening the already existing structures and areas. To this end, on December 15th 2014, a document with the list of the activities that this management considers strategic for completing the Etna seaport structure under three main profiles, has been drawn up and sent to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport:
- Security improvement of the infrastructures and of the port efficiency, through the consolidation of docks and aprons to guarantee the maximum anti-seismic standards, the strengthening of the rocks protecting the breakwater to improve the response to coastal storms and to natural disasters in general, the creation of strategic structures for the Civil Protection;
- Development of road connections and of good and passenger mobility among the port, the dry port and the airport being just a few kilometers far;
- Realization of the process of integration between the port and the city and of routes and interconnections between the port area and the urban fabric, rationalization of spaces, reconversion of the port facilities to new urban functions with the aim of relaunching a revisited strategic function for the waterfront areas, that, betting on the tourist vocation of the city of Catania, could be the driving force of a socio-economic development of the entire Etna metropolitan area.
The Catania municipal administration has always supported with a great interest the Port Authority in the planning, promotion and reorganization of its port functions and activities.
In this light, the adopted method was that of researching, privileging, and incentivizing private financings.
The city took back its port to make it a “place” to live, as well as an engine of economic activities.
