The Market Place Seminar which UIC and FIATA, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, were jointly organising, held its 6th conference in Trieste, Italy, hosted in the Government Palace of the Region and co-hosted by Fedespedi.

Bringing together over 170 participants, the overarching theme of this event was “Strategic Interchange between sea and rail freight: What’s new?" The sessions addressed significant topics such as:

• Trends and developments when connecting sea and rail modes;
• New Central European Projects and innovative loading technologies;
• Rail connectivity between hinterland and ports: corridors;
• Best practice in rail shunting and IT terminal technologies.

The participants had the honour of listening to the opening speech by Mr Roberto Cosolini, Mayor of Trieste, who welcomed them in his “most European city”, and along with Mrs Mariagrazia Santoro, Government of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, expressed their will and need to work together to achieve more development in Trieste.

The Market Place Seminar aims to create opportunities for increased cooperation and business development within the rail sector by offering a common platform for railway undertakings, freight forwarders and customers.

The key aim of the seminar is to provide a lively exchange platform for railway undertakings, freight forwarders and customers, and their cooperation with sea carriers. By bringing together all participants of the logistics chain, we would like to create an opportunity to brainstorm effective transport solutions and attractive business opportunities. As in previous years, the conference will be conducted in a highly interactive format.

The next significant freight event hosted by Austrian Railways and UIC will be the 4th UIC Global Rail Freight Conference, to be held in Vienna, from 25-27 June. GRFC will be another unique occasion to look at the future outlook of global rail freight and the advantages to be expected from the development of global seamless transport chains.

You can find all the presentations of the speaker presentations from the Seminar here: http://marketplaceseminar.org/Presentations-23.html

You can find all the photos of the event, the seminar, the Golden Chariot Award and the Gala dinner, along with the technical visit of the port of Trieste here: http://marketplaceseminar.org/Photos.html

Following the debating sessions, participants had the opportunity to visit the Port of Trieste.
Located in the heart of Europe, at the intersection between shipping routes and the Baltic-Adriatic and Mediterranean TEN-T core network corridors, the Port of Trieste is an international hub for overland and sea trade with the dynamic market of Central and Eastern Europe. Of the approximately 2.3 million m2, 12,000 m2 are dedicated to multimodal transport. Approximately 240,000 units are loaded/unloaded by reach stackers from special container trains and the vessels are loaded/unloaded by human operated cranes. More information about the port of Trieste can be found on its website: http://www.porto.trieste.it/eng/port/description