Marine economy

Poland’s marine economy includes those sectors of the marine economy sector exploiting Poland’s location on the Baltic Sea. Among them the most important are:

·  the ship construction and renovation industries

·  seaports and harbours

·  shipping vessels

The Polish marine economy makes up about 2.5% of Poland’s GDP and its share in Poland’s exports exceeds 6%. Its role should rise, as marine industries are the most international area of the global economy. This results above all from the coastal locations of most industrial and trading centers of the world.

Shipyards

The most important sector in Poland’s marine economy is the shipbuilding industry. Poland stands in sixth place in the world in terms of the tonnage of ships built. In 2000, Polish shipyards built 34 ships with carrying capacity of more than 616 CGT, at a value of about $1 billion. Currently it has orders for about 100 ships with a combined tonnage of more than 2 million CGT and valued at about $3 billion.
Annually, ship repairs are valued at over $150 million. In recent years repair yards have taken on complicated orders such as refitting ships, building elements and renovations of oil platforms, and also new ships.
The Polish shipbuilding industry is in third position on the list of Poland’s largest exporters, with its share exceeding 5% of all Poland’s exports. The industry is also the largest exporter of manufactured industrial goods from Poland. All the big shipyards – once state-owned – were privatized deliberately on the basis of domestic capital and own management staff. The Polish shipbuilding industry is today undergoing an advanced stage of capital concentration and organization. Three capital groups have been established: Stocznia Szczecinskia Port Holding SA, Stocznia Gdynia SA and Gdanska Stocznia “Remontowa” SA.
Polish shipyards do not use any form of subsidy, and their competitive position is more difficult than many shipyards in the countries of the EU, which are guaranteed or have easier access to public funds.

Ports

Poland’s seaports are an integral part of Europe’s transport infrastructure. Today, the main task facing the ports is strengthening their role as inter-modal transport junctions, integrating different types of land transport (rail, road and inland waterways). Connected with this task is also the Polish ports’ participation in shaping modern land–water transportation and logistical chains. In Poland’s ports logistics-distribution centers are sprouting up, increasing the attractiveness of the ports and making them places for intensive investment and economic activity.
Polish ports are currently undergoing a period of reform. This is the main structural change in port management and port terrain infrastructure. The area run by the ports’ management is being separated from the ports’ commercial services sectors. This process of expected to end this year. In terms of turnover, Poland’s seaports maintain a stable reloading capacity, about 50 million tons per year. Structurally positive are the growing volumes of reloading small containers, with the simultaneous fall in the mass reloading.

Shipping

Domestic sea shipping is undergoing deep restructuring. This process has been going on longer than expected, and the costs higher than expected. External factors, especially connected with structural changes in shipping and the globalization of international trade, have had a strong impact on the process.
The historical era of port-to-port type shipping transportation is coming to an end. Sea shipping is becoming one of the elements of overall integrated transport operations, from supplier to recipient and in a wider sense also part of the multi-modal logistical chain shaping ‘just-in-time’ ‘door-to-door’ services.
A new enterprise is the joint Polish-German co-activity working on shifting parts of loads – to date carried from Poland to Germany by road transportation – on to close-distance shipping. This is in line with the European Commission’s “from road to sea/inland waterway” conception. For this reason new shipping connections with the necessary port services will be started.

source: www.poland.gov.pl