The Gateway to the Baltic Sea Region

By Anders Rubin

The history of Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP) is a story about a unique cross-border alliance. For the first time in history, two ports in two different countries have joined all their port operations into one company and one organisation. The merger became a fact on 1 January 2001.

CMP is located in the heart of the booming Öresund Region with 3.6 million inhabitants, an expanding business sector and increasing integration of people, know-how and products. At the same time, the Öresund Region is the gateway to the entire Baltic Region. CMP is not only responsible for direct supplies to the region, but now also plays an important international role in cruise ships, the distribution of cars and shipments of transit oil.

From the start there was a general agreement that synergies could be gained in transport and logistics. An international study has named CMP the best example of a merger between ports. The study lists a number of important reasons for the success of the merger, starting with having well-defined targets right from the outset. Also mentioned are sound commercial business deals, reduced irrelevant political influence on the company, the fact that CMP does not differentiate between whether revenues are generated in Malmö or in Copenhagen and CMP s focus on cost reductions during the merger process.

Specialisations have been developed in the transportation of various types of goods between the ports, and the management literally works across borders. Above all, Malmö is an important energy port as well as a transit port for goods from Sweden's most important trading partner Germany.

In Malmö, the development of a new logistic centre in the North Harbour (Norra Hamnen) is in progress in order not only to expand the capacity but also to make intermodality between different kind of goods transports such as road transport, railway and shipping more effective. This will not only mean avoiding bottlenecks but also economical and environmental benefits.

The city with the formation of CMP is well adapted to new forms of transport organisation.