HAROPA unites Le Havre, Rouen and Paris in a single structure

On Tuesday 1 June, the ports Le Havre, Rouen and Paris, all Seine axis ports have merged into one entity. The merge is intended to strengthen the ports in light of the European competition. Plans for the merge have existed for a long time, but now the merge is a reality. The ports will continue under the new name ‘Haropa Port’.

A new competitor for Antwerp and Rotterdam

The headquarters of Haropa will be in Le Havre. In total the new port will employ 1,800 people (1,200 in Le Havre, 400 in Rouen and 200 in Paris).

Haropa needs to compete with Antwerp and Rotterdam. “I am not satisfied that half of French container traffic goes through foreign ports”, says Stéphane Raison, chairman of the Haropa management board and former managing director of the port of Dunkirk. Yet, Haropa faces much competition. In 2017, according to OECD figures, France handled 5 million containers per year. In comparison; for Italy that was 10 million and Spain 15 million. In Rotterdam and Antwerp the numbers are respectively 14 and 12 million containers.

The cleanest gateway to Europe

The French have invested intensely in the new port, a staggering amount of 1.45 billion euros over seven years. Haropa also wants to invest in sustainability and to become a competitor to other ports in that manner. The port will receive 71 million euros out of the 175 million euros allocated to the greening of ports by the government’s recovery plan. Cities like Paris have established low emission zones (ZFE). The ZFE Grand Paris has banned heavy diesel vehicles from before 2009. Instead goods from Haropa will be transported mainly with ships via rivers to their destinations, instead of trucks. Haropa also presented the Green Dock project. The project is the port of Gennevilliers, 5 kilometers from Paris. It will have a multimodal logistics platform of 150 million euros which could create nearly 1,000 jobs. The port will be autonomous in energy thanks to 11,000 m² of solar panels. “We want the port of the Seine to become the cleanest and most competitive gateway to continental Europe”, promised Edouard Philippe, mayor of Le Havre.