Dragomir Matić of Luka Koper and Zeno D'Agostino of the Port of Trieste said that the ports should join forces and promote northern Adriatic as the best entry point to Europe.

According to the head of the Trieste Port Authority D'Agostino, Trieste cannot compete with Koper in certain segments, for example the prices, but it has other advantages, such as inter-modality and duty-free points.

The world has finally realised that the northern Adriatic offers a faster and cheaper way to get to the heart of Europe, D'Agostino told the debate on the international role of the Trieste port and cooperation with Koper hosted by the Italian CGIL trade union confederation in cooperation with the Slovenian KS 90 confederation.

If the Trieste and Koper ports want to use this to their advantage, they should promote each other and look into the possibilities for cooperation in the training of staff, he added.

D'Agostino sees great potential for cooperation in railway transshipment, where the two ports' combined transshipment exceeds that of the Dutch Rotterdam port.

Given that the two neighbouring ports develop completely different services, Matić stressed that there was no need for rivalry between them.

In line with its strategy, adopted in 2015, Luka Koper has been focussing on the areas where it has
a competitive edge and has no desire to develop in areas that have not been its priority so far and which have traditionally been Trieste's speciality, he said.

There are also activities that overlap and where cooperation would be possible, Matić said, pointing to container transshipment.

If Trieste did not develop in these areas this would have a negative impact on Koper and visa versa, he said.

Both ports plan several-million-euro investments in the next few years, which Matić believes could help them seize the opportunity to compete together against north European ports as the Chinese in particular are looking to create a new Silk Route to Europe.

The combined container transshipment of Koper and Trieste will have reached 1.5 million units this year and their capacities are to enable the transshipment of two million units by 2020, Matić noted.