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Durrës Port Authority: Supporting Albania’s Maritime Trade

As one of the largest ports in the Adriatic Ionian maritime area, the Port of Durrës is vital to the maritime trade of Albania across local and international waters. The port today, overseen by the Autoriteti Portual Durrës, (Durrës Port Authority) is Albania’s main port of call thanks to its favourable positioning and firm financial situation, and so plays a key role not just in supporting Albania’s economy but the economies of neighbouring countries.

The Port of Durrës has long played a valuable role in the region having been linked to supporting life in the Durrës for close to 3000 years. Its role across the centuries has been vital, and by the 20th century, the Port of Durrës had established its role as a key economic hub, with a rapid development of its seaport in the 1950s to meet the needs of merchant fleet ships travelling from Durrës to ports across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Today, Durrës is a vital gateway for product and cargo movement to the Balkan countries, as well as many across the European Union. The port’s operations today are largely facilitated by the rapid development of its infrastructure and technology, and so it is with this constant development in mind that the Port maintains its role in supporting Albania’s maritime sector. However, the port today wouldn’t be possible without the Durrës Port Authority who are responsible for overseeing the services and operations of the port every day.

The Durrës Port Authority is set on a mission to concretize the Albania Government’s strategy for developing and modernizing the port’s infrastructure and maritime transport. The Durrës Port Authority controls both the Port of Durrës and Porto Romano which means that it has central control over the vital gateways for maritime trade into Albania. Through the development of the port’s infrastructure under the Durrës Port Authority, it aims to make Albania an attractive location for international companies looking to ship cargo across the region, and so by expanding its role to a global customer base, it drives for establishing vital economic independence for Durrës and Albania in the process.

The Durrës port is home 2 two specialised ports: a cargo port and a tourist port. Together the ports provide a competitive landscape where contractors and operators across the maritime sphere can work together with the Port Authority to facilitate the movement of cargo, tourism, and various maritime-related operations. The Port Authority is set on leading both public and private entities with interest and activities in the port to create a Single Maritime Window system, which will make port services and procedures across the port more digitalized for both domestic and international carriers. By implementing this digitalization, the Port Authority highlights Durrës as a vital port moving towards the future of maritime development supported by top technological advancements to regulate and standardise all operations to meet international standards.

At the heart of the Durrës Port Authority’s operations today is its Centre of Excellent for Maritime Affairs (CEMA). CEMA was founded by the Port of Durrës in 2021 in cooperation with the Aleksandër Moisiu University of Durrës and the Institute for Cooperation and Development. The cooperating parties, working with the Permanent Secretariat of the Transport Community and Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, hope that CEMA can provide a reference point from which interested parties in Albania and the southeastern European maritime sector to enhance the regional maritime development.

CEMA aims to provide services related to the building, skills, development, and youth employment within Albania’s maritime industry through the construction of an innovation centre. This centre provides the necessary integrated public and private capacities a platform from which the development of the maritime and logistics sector can thrive with the recent implementation of automation and artificial intelligence within the region’s maritime sector. Today, CEMA serves as an innovation centre where multi-stakeholder, multi-level arrangements that provide tailored research can operate, whilst also providing a platform for collaboration between governmental institutions, academics, research groups, and other stakeholders vital to the Port of Durrë’s development.

CEMA highlights the innovation that underpins the Durrës Port Authority’s mission to provide the necessary framework from which local and international stakeholders can collaborate in order to develop Albania’s maritime sector towards the future. With this vital space for continual development, the Durrës Port Authority continues to establish Albania as a competitive and attractive location for maritime operations for the economic development of Albania in the process.

The development of Alabania’s maritime sector has been largely successful under the Durrës Port Authority because between January and September 2024, 5.4 million tons of goods were processed through the Durrës-Porto Romano Port Complex. This included a significant increase in both exports and imports. In the export market, the port complex saw a 7% increase primarily in the manufacturing sector with Albanian products being in high demand from international markets. This demand is largely thought to be due to the diversification of Albania’s export production and the establishment of new trade agreements with neighbouring countries. However, to achieve such high import and export operations, the Durrës Port Authority played a vital role as it continued to expand the Durrë-Porto Romano Port Complex’s facilities to meet the needs of the growing import and export markets of Albania.

Ultimately, the Durrës Port Authority’s mission to responsibly facilitate Albania’s international commerce through the Port of Durrës has been largely successful. With significant growth in the country’s export and import markets, the Durrës Port Authority has established both the Port of Durrës and the Porto Romano as vital gateways into Albania. As the port moves towards the future, we look forward to seeing how digitalization and the adoption of artificial intelligence will play an ongoing role in establishing the Port of Durrës as a modern and thriving port set on harnessing Albania’s maritime sector towards a long and thriving future.

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