The Board of Directors of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (PAB) approved today, at its last meeting of the year, the Business Plan for 2009. The plan envisages an investment of more than forty-five million euros in five major ports managed by the PAB in the Balearic archipelago. Among the items detailed in the meeting was the 4.8 million euros destined for the construction of the new maritime station at the Port of Alcudia, which is expected to become operational next summer.The Port of Palma has a budget of 18.1 million euros for work to be carried out in 2009.

As of this week, the port of Palma has a new travel lift for boats of up to 700 tonnes and 60 meters in length, which consolidates the port as a strategic point in the Mediterranean in the sector of superyacht repairs. The travel lift is located in the dry dock area of the Commercial Dock (Muelle Comercial) in the port of Palma. It is managed by the company STP and has been installed by the Italian firm Ascom.The port of Palma has more than 105,000 square meters allocated to the maintenance and repair of boats of up to 90 meters in length.

The Port of Palma has registered for the first time the simultaneous stopovers of seven cruise ships, which coincided for several hours today in the bay of the capital of Majorca. These were the ships Wind Surf, Aidacara, Aidadiva, Thomson Spirit, Insignia, Grand Celebration and Oriana, which carried on board a total of more than eight thousand five hundred passengers. In fact, the Port of Palma had already registered the presence of seven tourist cruises on the same day, but never all at the same time.

The Board of Directors of the PABhas decided to elect the company Trapsayates S.L. as the most advantageous choice to for the tender to manage the moorings of the piers of Levante in the Port of Maó, according to the proposal of the Technical Committee responsible for reporting on the bids submitted to the competition. The proposal of Trapsayates S.L. offers an annual fee of 600,000 euros, an investment for the improvement and expansion of facilities of 2.8 million and a concession period of 14 years and ten months.

The first week of September a group of members of the European Commission visited the Port of Palma to evaluate the degree of implementation of the EU legislation on safety for the transport of people and goods in ports (EEC 65/2004) and also of Royal Decree 1617/2007. This norm appears in Chapter XI of the international agreement SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The Government of the Balearic Islands has appointed today, in the governing council to the president of the Island Council of Minorca, Marc Pons, as a new member of the board of the Port Authority of Balearic Islands (PAB), in place of Joana Barceló, current counsellor for the Department of Labour and Training of the autonomous executive. Marc Pons has been summoned by the PAB to attend the next meeting of the board of directors to be held October 2 in Palma de Mallorca, at which time the bids for the moorings at the Levante dock in the Port of Mahon will be settled.

The technical committee of the PAB, which is responsible for reporting on the bids submitted to public tender for the operation of a center for storage and distribution of cement in the Ribera dock at the Port of Alcudia, has accepted the bid from the company Reunides Sitges, SL. The board of the PAB voted in favour of the tender proposed by the chairman of the PAB, Francesc Triay, in accordance with the assessment made by the technical committee.

The PAB and the Spanish Tourist Office in Miami organized a familiarization trip (fam trip) for the Balearic Islands to introduce the main cruise companies to the tourist attractions of the islands. From the 12th to the16th of September they toured Ibiza, Formentera, Majorca and Minorca and visited, in addition to the ports of the PAB, Dalt Vila of Ibiza, Sant Antoni, Santa Eulària, the Mola Formentera, the historic center of Palma, the Serra de Tramuntana, Alcudia, Mahon and Cuitadella.

The PAB is forecast to invest 116 million euros until beyond 2012 in the completion of the new terminal for cargo and passengers projected for the Port of Ibiza. The Business Plan for the PAB has approved an estimated investment of 115.7 million euros in construction in the Port of Ibiza. The projects include the construction of the esplanade and the two quays, with a forecast budget of 70 million. The work has an estimated duration of 24 months.

The PAB has organized a familiarization trip (Fam Trip), in collaboration with the Spanish Tourist Office in Miami, to the ports of Palma, Mahon, Ibiza and La Savina, with the aim of raising awareness among major international cruise companies of new attractions in the Balearic Islands as a tourist destination.