Cándido Armas Rodríguez, a prominent businessman from Lanzarote and former mayor of Arrecife and senator for the Island, commented on Radio Lanzarote about the recent meeting of the Association of Ship Consignees of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura held with María del Rosario Saavedra, exploitation and service technician of the Port Authority of Las Palmas.
Armas Rodríguez attended this meeting as a representative of the Chamber of Commerce and Navigation of Lanzarote. The Association presented Saavedra with the numerous deficiencies of the port of Arrecife, "which are understood to need to be corrected so that the port has the agility it should have."
Meeting
For his part, Armas explained to the representative of the Port Authority the concern that "the businessmen of Conejeros have in relation to maritime commerce, since we continuously use the port, so we exposed the deficiencies that we understand and the lack of agility that exists in a lot of issues."
Armas stated at the meeting that the businessmen of the Island estimate that "the Port of Los Mármoles does not correspond at all with the economic and commercial evolution that Lanzarote has had, and we asked that this be considered by the Port Authority, and especially that from now on" the numerous studies that support the growth and development of the port of the capital of the Island be taken into account.
Another meeting
The result of the meeting was the agreement to hold another meeting, this time with the president of the Port Authority, to expose the shortcomings and so that "the issue of the port, the cruise ship dock, the closure to the south, the improvement of port facilities, the agility of berths, and the rest of the deficiencies that Arrecife has" can begin to move forward.
It must be taken into account that Lanzarote is harmed by the current system for counting the merchandise that enters the Island by sea. Only merchandise destined for Lanzarote that arrives at the port directly, without first passing through Las Palmas, is counted as such.
Otherwise, it is counted as destined for the Port of Light in the capital of Gran Canaria, so the statistics of the commercial flow of the port of Arrecife do not correspond to reality, because as a result of the counting system, the impression is generated that the port activity of the Island is less than it actually is.
In any case, Armas transmitted to Saavedra that "the port, on an island like Lanzarote, is the heart of the insular territory, and it has to exist" regardless of the benefits it can generate "according to the needs of the population of the Island."
Million-dollar investments in the port of La Luz
Given the million-dollar investments that continue to be made in the Port of Light in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the apathy of the authorities with regard to Lanzarote, Armas pointed out that the Island already has sufficient capacity to have an autonomous Port Authority, independent of the capital.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the attitude of the Las Palmas Authority is that it denies Lanzarote the construction of a cruise ship dock, being the Island the first port of the Archipelago in terms of the entry of this type of maritime tourism. According to Armas, it is completely paradoxical that in Santa Cruz de Tenerife a cruise ship dock is being prepared, which is said to be the largest in Europe, and that in Fuerteventura the first dikes are being laid for the construction of this type of dock, while Lanzarote has been denied this infrastructure for years.
"Last year, more than 300 cruise ships were counted on the Island, almost one daily, and that generates important commercial activity and a significant amount of money that enters the Island," Armas stated.
