25. May 2019

DUAL Ports went to EMD2019 in Portugal

The European Maritime Days were held in Lisbon, Portugal on the 16-17thof May 2019. The DUAL Ports project was represented at the conference as the only Interreg project from the North Sea Region.

”The focus in 2019 was on blue entrepreneurship, research, innovation and investment to boost sustainable technologies and emerging value chains in the wider ocean economy.” European Maritime Day

More than 1400 participants had registered for this year’s conference, and many interested people in the maritime industry and from the European Commission stopped by the DUAL Ports corner.

The annual conference is organized by the European Commission, this year in correlation with the Portuguese Ministry of the Sea and the City of Lisbon.

The conference was opened by the Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella, who used the occasion to launch the second edition of the European Commission’s Blue Economy Report.

Commissioner Vella said: “Coastal regions are home to 214 million people and generate 43% of EU GDP. Today’s report confirms the blue economy’s role as an exciting growth sector, with opportunities both in established sectors like tourism and shipbuilding, and in emerging areas like ocean energy or the blue bioeconomy. Yet we also know that blue economy start-ups and small companies often struggle to get their good ideas off the ground. That is why the European Commission is currently developing an investment-readiness support tool to help them mature and eventually access the funding they need to scale up.”

You can read the press-release about the event and the impact of the report right here.