Tech imperative for sustainable ports — PPA chief

Ports must adopt new technologies to be sustainable, according to Philippine Ports Authority general manager Atty. Jay Daniel Santiago.

"These [new technologies] do not only address the current climate challenges, but they also address the current requirement for sustainability, and we need to migrate to that level of technology already in order to make sure that our infrastructure and our facilities are ecologically sustainable," Santiago said in a speech during the opening of the 10th International Conference on Coastal Port Engineering in Developing Countries or COPEDEC at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on Tuesday.

"This is because the resources are limited and we have to make sure that for the long term, we are able to sustain our operations, in a way that's sustainable," Santiago said.

The COPEDEC has been religiously organized for the past 10 years by the Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses or PIANC.

As a non-political and non-profit organization established in 1885, PIANC's mission is to bring together international experts to issue high-ranking technical reports covering a wide range of topics related to sustainable waterborne transport infrastructure, with a strong focus on Climate Change and Working with Nature.

This year, PPA co-presented the event to provide an international forum for engineers from developing countries and a venue for the exchange of experiences especially on waterborne transport infrastructure development.

Santiago also expressed utmost gratitude that the agency was given an opportunity to host an international event with a huge contribution to the continuous improvement of the country's port infrastructure projects.

"With the typhoons and other natural disasters posing a constant threat to the Philippines, discussion on resilient infrastructure designs coupled with disaster risk reduction initiatives on waterborne transportation during the COPEDEC conference will be highly relevant to the country's disaster resilience efforts at ports nationwide," he said.

PPA has been an active member of PIANC since 2013 which holds the COPEDEC conference every four years.

The forum was formerly set to be conducted in the Philippines in 2020 but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was postponed to this year.

The 5-day conference will cover all aspects of ports from planning, construction and maintenance within a week full of workshops, technical sessions and training opportunities for attendees.

"Here in PIANC, we are working in a holistic manner. Infrastructure cannot be separated from port operations and infrastructure cannot be concealed without the full life cycle such as disruptions, maintenance and operations. The digital world brings a lot of opportunities in these topics," Francisco Esteben Lefler, PIANC president said, for his part.

Among the member countries of PIANC are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.