Maritime Economists from 40 Countries Will Meet at ECLAC

(25 October, 2011) Economists and maritime researchers from 40 countries in America, Asia, Europe, Oceania and Africa will attend the Annual Conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists IAME 2011 Latin America, which will be held from 25 to 28 October at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in Santiago, Chile.

At the meeting, which will be held in South America for the first time, the participants will analyse the maritime and port sector in Latin America and the rest of the world and its key role as facilitator of development.

The meeting will be opened on Tuesday 25 October at 4 p.m. by Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC; Gloria Hutt, Under Secretary of Transport of Chile; Kevin Cullinane,  Director of the Scientific Committee of the Transport Research Institute (TRI) at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland, United Kingdom; Theo E. Notteboom of the Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp (ITMMA) at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and President of IAME; Ricardo Sánchez and Gordon Wilmsmeier of the Infrastructure Services Unit of the ECLAC Division for Natural Resources and Infrastructure, promoters of IAME.

Some of the issues which will be dealt with at the meeting include the port reform, the renegotiation of the first port concessions in the region, the development of the Panama Canal, the liberalization and regulation of maritime transport and the role of shipping networks and ports in the competitiveness of countries in a global economy.

During the meeting, ECLAC will present a study on the time horizon in which the largest ships reach South American coasts and the effect on the planning of port infrastructure and associated logistic services.

More information is available on the ECLAC website.

The media are invitied to this conference which will take place at ECLAC headquarters (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile).

Any queries should be addressed to the ECLAC Public Information and Web Services Section. E-mail: dpisantiago@cepal.org; Telephone: (56 2) 210 2040.

Follow us on: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.