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On 15th November at the Leixões Cruise Terminal, the Port of Aveiro Administration and Fórum Oceano - Associação da Economia do Mar signed a cooperation protocol to promote and develop the economy, innovation, industry and business promotion in the maritime sector, as part of the 'Business2Sea Matosinhos 2024' event.
The cooperation to be developed between the parties is based on two main areas
- Promotion of financing policies in the maritime field, namely information and development of an open innovation ecosystem, based on the promotion of innovation initiatives, incubation and acceleration of companies, especially promoted by women entrepreneurs, to scale up relevant technologies, robotics, digitalisation, maritime transport, support for the development of new value chains for autonomous vehicles for use and application in the maritime domain, renewable marine energies, desalination and green shipbuilding, creating new business opportunities in the sea and water domain;
- Education, training, applied research, dissemination and communication, in particular the joint organisation of training programmes, seminars, workshops, conferences and scientific dissemination programmes, as well as the development of indicators and solutions for providing information services of an environmental, social and governance (ESG) nature, for monitoring and quantifying the impact of investments in the field of sustainable maritime economy, among other initiatives.
The Port of Aveiro and Fórum Oceano are thus committed to working together to implement the agreed strategies, promoting the exchange of information and innovation in the maritime sector.
The protocol, signed by Eduardo Feio, President of the Board of Directors of the Port of Aveiro, and Carlos Pina and Agostinho Oliveira, respectively President and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Fórum Oceano, is part of the initiative of the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) proposed by the United Nations Organisation and the National Strategy for the Sea (ENM) 2021-2030, approved by Resolution No. 68/2021 of the Council of Ministers on 4th June. One of the objectives of the ENM is to strengthen the national scientific and technological innovation capacity and stimulate the development of new areas of action that promote knowledge of the sea and effectively, efficiently and sustainably improve the management and exploitation of its resources, uses, activities and ecosystem services, leading to the construction of an innovative and sustainable marine economy.
It should be noted that the mission of Fórum Oceano - Associação Empresarial da Economia do Mar is to strengthen the dynamics of strategic cooperation between stakeholders - companies, R&D centres, universities, public administrations - and to promote the competitiveness of the main value chains that use the sea and marine resources as central elements of their activity, in order to make a sustainable contribution to economic growth, exports and employment, and to increase the relative importance of the maritime economy in the national economy.
With this partnership, the Port of Aveiro reinforces its commitment to the national policy for the development of a sustainable maritime economy.
