Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications and APM Terminals holds stakeholder engagement session

As part of the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication’s strategy to partner with customers and stakeholders, the Ports and Maritime Affairs, in cooperation with APM Terminals, the operator of Khalifa Bin Salman Port, held a stakeholder engagement session at the Capital Club, which was attended by various key stakeholders, including decision makers from private sector companies, business owners and senior officials from the government sector.

The session which was led jointly by HE Mr. Bader Hood Al Mahmood, Assistant Undersecretary for Ports Affairs and Mrs. Susan Hunter, Managing Director of the Port Operating Company, APM Terminals Bahrain, sought to collectively engage with important industry players, to review key highlights and developments at KBSP, understand market conditions and the forecast for growth over the medium term, besides identifying business opportunities within the shipping and logistics sector of Bahrain.

At the start of the session, Mr Al Mahmood welcomed the attendees and thanked Mrs. Hunter, and the APM Terminals Bahrain Executive Management team for hosting this session. He then discussed the desired objectives of this session with the focus being on measures required to accelerate industrial growth within the Kingdom of Bahrain, through an action plan to capture opportunities, optimization of the utilization of resources and transforming these opportunities into successes that can be sustained and replicated, thus contributing to the continued development of the Kingdom's economy and specifically to the shipping and logistics sector.

APM Terminals provided a detailed overview of Khalifa Bin Salman Port, which included various important milestones and achievements over the past 10 years of operation, including key performance indicators such as consistently low gate turnaround times, capacity utilization within various areas, volume trends, as well as some of the challenges faced in filling up the spare capacity available within the port. The audience was also informed of key improvements that have been planned for implementation shortly and these included among others increased reliability and improved customer experience through the upgrade of its Terminal Operating System (TOS), enhanced fleet of equipment and the introduction of an online gate pass system. With an eye on the future, APM Terminals also highlighted its readiness for embrace technology such as Blockchain, which will provide its users with increased end to end transparency and visibility of documentation and activity flows, thus enabling seamless port and logistical activities.

Participants engaged in an interactive brain-storming session to identify potential areas for growing the Bahrain Economy through developing the Transport and Logistics sector, a key pillar of Bahrain Economic Vision 2030, and related barriers/challenges which when overcome can accelerate growth. A time bound action plan was agreed upon with an acknowledgement that this meeting was the beginning of a long-term journey, which calls for closer cooperation between the various industry stakeholders. Participants offered their commitment on investing their time and effort, in taking these ideas to their logical conclusion.

The session concluded with HE Mr. Mahmood and Mrs. Susan Hunter thanking all participants for their contribution in making this event a complete success.