Mare Forum’s arrival will strengthen the show’s international dimension

At its next edition, World Maritime Week will host Mare Forum, which comes to Spain for the first time in a history spanning more than two decades. Mare Forum Spain runs all day on 9 March 2027, the opening day of the show.

Staging the two events side by side will help strengthen ties between the sector’s leading international players. “Bringing Mare Forum to World Maritime Week builds on something we have been working on for several editions now: linking the sector’s industrial and technological capabilities with professionals and organisations from a range of markets. It gives us the chance to expand those relationships in both directions, and we have set up this partnership with the long term in mind,” says Maite Santayana, Event Manager at WMW.

Georgios Kostoulas, Executive Director of Mare Forum, stresses that “for more than 25 years, Mare Forum has brought together the professionals who take the maritime industry’s strategic decisions, giving them a space to debate the sector’s major challenges face to face. Holding the forum within World Maritime Week for the first time will let us connect our international network with one of the most complete maritime value chains in Europe, and bring Basque and Spanish companies closer to some of the leading decision-makers in the global maritime industry.”

The region’s maritime and industrial ecosystem weighed heavily in its choice as host of this first edition. Bizkaia and The Basque Country have a highly specialised maritime value chain, spanning shipyards, shipowners, equipment manufacturers, engineering firms, service companies, technology centres, universities, port authorities and other specialist players. It also looks firmly towards export markets, in a sector where internationalisation and competitiveness are strategic priorities.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Rotterdam, Mare Forum has organised more than 350 events in cities around the world. Over the years it has built an ecosystem of shipowners and shipping companies, senior executives, investors and financial institutions, shipyards, technology and service companies, official bodies and other professionals involved in decision-making across the maritime industry.

Its format centres on direct debate, with senior figures discussing the strategic issues facing the sector. Mare Forum Spain will keep this approach in its first edition. Among other areas, the agenda will cover geopolitics and new trade routes, European maritime strategy, shipbuilding competitiveness, the energy transition, finance and investment, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digitalisation and shifts in the shipping markets.

The partnership between World Maritime Week and Mare Forum comes at a particularly important moment, with the maritime industry facing major challenges. Decarbonisation, the energy transition and new fuels, fleet renewal, digitalisation, technological development, investment financing, how international markets evolve and how competitive Europe’s maritime industry is: all of these are shaping the strategies of shipowners, investors, shipyards, ports, technology suppliers and other players across the value chain. Against this backdrop, bringing World Maritime Week and Mare Forum participants together will give companies and professionals in the sector more opportunities to share knowledge, make contacts and do business.

WORLD MARITIME WEEK is organised by Bilbao Exhibition Centre, with the support of the SPRI Group–Basque Government, the Basque Government’s Department of Food, Rural Development, Agriculture and Fisheries and Bizkaia Provincial Council as institutional partners, and BASQUENERGY Cluster, the Basque Maritime Forum and Uniport Bilbao as industry partners.