Today was centered around the largest and most significant port in all of Cyprus; the Port of Limassol. We started off with the port manager, Panayiotis Agathocleous, and the Cyprus Ports Authority. The CPA is a government agency that handles the infrastructure and certain port operations, such as safety, cranes, and storage. The organization plays a vital role in supply chain management in ensuring the safe and smooth operations of private corporations that are shipping goods across the globe from where they are to built to where they are consumed, in this case, the island of Cyprus. They are working to modernize and make the supply chain faster with their implementation of the Port Community System. The government also plays a role in both the CPA and the supply chain with the regulations it places on these large, private corporations that move items through safety and environmental regulations that help the workers and the planet.

The first private company that dealt port operations that we visited was D.P. World along with its subsidiary of P&O Maritime. These companies, which are based in Dubai, work in hand-in-hand to keep global supply chains moving with physical operations and logistic management. On land, much of the work is handled by D.P. World, who moves cargo from long-distance ships to local trucks in Cyprus which deliver them to distribution centers, such as Vasos Eliades which we visited last week. From these centers, the cargo moves to places which they can be bought by consumers. Before they can get to land, however, marine operations are handled by P&O Maritime, such as piloting, tugging, and berthing. These are basically everything that ensures that a ship can dock in a safe and efficient manner. The last company we visited was Eurogate, who are separate and are focused on handling the majority of large containers that arrive in Limassol, both twenty and forty foot equivalents. The company is the largest in the port, containing 202 employees and handling 90% of cargo arriving in Cyprus. Within 15-20 minutes of containers being offloaded from humongous cargo ships, Eurogate makes it possible for them to be ready to be picked up by trucks due to their streamlined and coordinated screening processes with the Cyprus Department of Customs. This is one way they have sped up the supply chain in Cyprus through more efficient transfers between different modes of transport.