Connecting micro-SMEs to high-potential maritime markets
Port areas are large experimental laboratories in the heart of densely populated urban areas. They combine a solid industrial and tertiary business base with environmental, social, technological and economic challenges. As a result, they allow VSEs and SMEs [Very Small and Small and Midsized Entrprises] to identify markets. The ports of the future are the real drivers for the recovery of a sustainable local economy. In the future, challenges from new uses, environmental and societal needs and technological innovations will allow VSEs and SMEs to invest in new high-growth markets. Currently, there seem to be three port sectors supporting growth, including that of VSEs and SMEs: - Leisure and Yachting: this sector includes many marinas with over 150,000 ring networks, dozens of shipbuilders, hundreds of contractors, which implies tens of thousands of jobs; - Logistics: including freight transport, storage, maintenance, packaging and other related services. 20,000 to 30,000 jobs link directly to logistics. Cruise and ferry ports: twenty ports harbour ferries and cruise ships, which means several tens of millions of passengers per year and several tens of millions of euro in economic benefits for local business. BlueConnect proposes the establishment of a monitoring centre to list the socio-economic data of port activities in Var, the Maritime Alps, Corsica, Sardinia, Liguria and Tuscany, and use this data to build a cross-border network of economic developers to deal with the growth of services geared to existing VSEs and SMEs