In the first semester the ports of Olbia, Golfo Aranci and Porto Torres have lost a traffic than more 300 thousand passengers



The economic crisis has a devastating effect on the activity of the ports of the Sardinia North. In the first six months of 2012 ulteriorly the marine traffic in the ports of Olbia is diminished, Golfo Aranci and Porto Torres: if in the first six months of the 2011 they were landed to three ports of call 4,067 ships (with a bending of 18.2% on the first half of 2010), in the first half of this year are recorded the ports of call of 3.713 ships, with a decrease of 8.7% on the first semester of 2011.

It has turned out still more emphasized the contraction of the traffic of the passengers: in the period January-june of this year the three ports have enlivened a traffic of 1.038.025 passengers, with a reduction of 23.4% regarding 1.354.903 passengers in the first half of the 2011 (period in which the traffic of the fleeting ones was dropped of 21.4% on the first semester of 2010).

"Sul depositor of the traffic fleeting - the president of the Harbour Authority of the Sardinia North has commented, Paolo Piro - the budget of the first six months of the 2012 confirmation our fears. The numbers speak clear: the crisis and the economic uncertainty continue to dictate the rules of the marine transports and to sink the economy, already in itself penalized, of the island. Olbia is sure the port that it has the greater damage quickly: in connection with june 2010 we have lost almost 425 thousand passengers, regarding 165 thousand of Golfo Aranci and to 97 thousand of Porto Torres. Losses that, unfortunately, will go to increase with the data of July and August".

Piro has remembered the infrastructural and commercial initiatives of the agency in order to try to stimulate throws again of the traffics: "to the current state - it has explained - without an approved of Town development plan, the port of Olbia does not admit infrastructural participations faces to upgrade the receptivity. The same one is worth for that of Porto Torres, whose I throw again has been programmed in the lines guides of the adopted PRP to beginning month. Various it is the situation of Golfo Aranci, for which, in a month, we will on hand have a new berthing that will be able to accommodate a second ship. From the point of view of the commercial agreements, instead, I have already started the negotiations for the activation of a new line that connects Golfo Aranci with Genoa and gives back vitality to the port of call".

According to Piro, however, it is necessary to place side by side such actions with a reflection to wide beam that involves all the competent agencies in matter of tourism and transports: "one of the root causes - it has emphasized the president of the Harbour Authority - is sure general politics of the prices, still anachronistic regarding the current consistency of the pockets of the Italian. We cannot only aim the finger at the cost of tickets, but we must make all with a conscience analysis on the direction that we intend to take in order to make tourism and to give again appeal to the Sardinia. To such purpose, past Wednesday I have sent a report on the course of the traffics to the president of the Region, praying it to hold weever the attention on this particularly difficult moment".

If the traffic of the passengers has accused the impact of the crisis also that of the goods, evidently, it is in suffering: in the first six months of the 2012 total decrease of assets in arrival and departure from the three Sardinian ports it has been of 15%, with almost 680 thousand tons in less regarding the first semester last year.

"Collapse of the transport of the goods on the three ports - it has observed Piro - is obvious sign of the impoverishment of the Sardinia. If it is hard the contraction of the question of assets on every month of the year, still more the scissor seems to increase in the periods of peak season: from March, for Passover, in June, for the holidays summery. Periods, these, in which the sensitive decrease of the presences in the island, the lacked opening is found or, worse, the closing than many business activities and, therefore, the producing decrease of the import of".