SELA and CAF sign Phase III of non-refundable technical cooperation agreement for Digital and Collaborative Ports Network Programme

Caracas, 15 August 2017.-  The Permanent Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), Ambassador Javier Paulinich, and the President of CAF-Development Bank of Latin America, Luis Carranza, signed Phase III of the non-refundable technical cooperation agreement for the creation of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Digital and Collaborative Ports, with the purpose of strengthening logistic port communities in a globalized, logistically competitive and sustainable environment through the optimization of its standards of service and technological innovation.

Phase III of the Programme (2017-2018) aims to expand and consolidate the Regional Programme for the Creation of the Network of Digital and Collaborative Ports and implement the recommendations for facilitating and encouraging collaborative innovation projects in countries, port communities and logistics port corridors in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is expected to link the ports of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Mexico; Kingston, in Jamaica; Lisas, in Trinidad and Tobago; Barranquilla, in Colombia; Buenos Aires, in Argentina; and Santa Catarina, in Brazil, thus expanding the network to 12 countries and 21 port systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since its inception, the Digital and Collaborative Ports Network Programme has received the technical and financial support of CAF-Development Bank of Latin America through the signing of three non-refundable technical cooperation agreements. In its first two phases (from 2014 to 2016), the Programme has undertaken the task of strengthening various aspects of logistics and competitiveness at the institutional level, with port logistic communities and public-private partnerships for logistics; at the operational level, with best practices for synchronizing ship-port-land operations; and at the technological level, with collaborative information systems, such as Port Single Windows (VUP, for its Spanish acronym), logistic coordination systems and logistic modules in interoperation with Foreign Trade Single Windows (VUCE, for its Spanish acronym).

This initiative, carried out between the two institutions, aims to further strengthen the existing relations between the Permanent Secretariat of SELA and CAF, in particular concerning technical and financial cooperation.