The B2B meetings serve as a negotiating space for prescribers and suppliers to exchange information. The 35 international buyers invited this year arrived to an agenda packed with meetings with the exhibiting companies; in all, 458 meetings were held in what is, undoubtedly, one of the strategic elements of World Maritime Week.
One of the professionals of this year’s delegation is Gerardo Fuentes Cortés, New Business Manager of the TMM Group, who visited World Maritime Week previously in 2017. The Mexican shipping company is a leader in maritime transportation, focussing its activity on the offshore sector. “For us, events like the World Maritime Week are essential”, said the manager, “because our stay here is part of the company’s strategy of showing off our international fuel transport services, making contact with the Spanish shipbuilding industry and seeing what their market analysis is. We came here looking for new job opportunities and niches.” The TMM Group, which has worked with state-run company PEMEX in the past but which now has, thanks to energy reforms, large oil companies in its client portfolio such as Exxon, Shell or BP, offers “quality and commitment” according to its motto, in all of its services, including the transport of containers, dry cargo, tanker vessels, chemical cargo vessels, storage logistics, ports and terminals, and even a special fiscal storage division.
Ting Ing Ting, Project Manager for the shipbuilding company Berjaya Dockyard SDN BHD, who also took part in the B2B meetings held during the first edition of World Maritime Week and who is returning to do so again this year, considers these meetings a “great opportunity to make contact with companies and suppliers in the maritime sector”. “We are a Malaysia-based company and making direct contact with European companies is of huge value to us”, Ting Ing acknowledges.
Temu Keso, Foreman of the Ship Services Department of the shipbuilding company Alfons Hakans, believes that the meetings have exceeded their expectations. “We have a fleet of more than 40 boats – towage, salvage and icebreakers – operating on the Finnish and Estonian coast. We need suppliers of all kinds, especially for mechanical parts. I have met interesting companies here. In our country, maritime transport is very important because we are a kind of island.”
Jaime Antonio Sanchez, Vice President of Astivik Shipyard, who has participated for the first time in these meetings, has a very positive opinion about them. “We came specifically to expand our horizons and we’re getting there. Our shipyard has been in the market for 47 years and we have developed our projects mainly in Colombia. What we are now trying to do is to expand those horizons with Spanish European companies to try to make the Colombian industry more efficient and modern”.
The B2B programme has brought together in Bilbao Exhibition Centre, representatives from other countries like the Philippines, Thailand, Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iran, France, Belgium, Egypt or Morocco.
Leave A Comment