Two-day Silk Road, Gateway Poland Summit kicks off today
Today is the first day of the Rail Freight Summit, held in Wroclaw, Poland. Over the next two days, expert speakers will share their knowledge and experiences regarding the New Silk Road, with a special focus on Poland as a gateway. We will be hosting a live blog, broadcasting speakers and reporting the latest news. If you were not able to attend, you can follow the summit on our website.
The event, organised by RailFreight.com and Nieuwsblad Transport is themed Silk Road, Gateway Poland. It will examine the developments which have brought the New Silk Road to the forefront of the Europe-Asia logistics corridors, what they mean for Poland and the other countries along the growing number of routes, not least China.
Programme
Day one will start with a technical visit, enabling visitors to meet some of the people behind the logistical chains in Poland. The second part of the day will features keynote speeches on the meaning of the Silk Road and Poland, and the implications of the One Belt, One Road project for eastern Europe.
Day two begins with a focus on the ambitions of China, followed by sessions on how to connect the Silk Road routes and stops, and the business case for Poland and beyond. You can find the complete programme here.
Live broadcasting
We will broadcast several presentations in the live blog. On day 1 of the summit, you can view the presentation of Juliusz Skurewicz of the Polish International Freight Forwarders Association. Starting at 4.15 PM, he will be talking about the development of logistics in Poland as a result of the New Silk Road.
One day 2, you can tune in at 9.55 AM to listen to Chris Wensink, who is an advisor in transport and logistics at Panteia. He will talk about the effect of the Silk Road on transport patterns to and from European sea ports. At 11.10 AM we broadcast the presentation of Witold Smidowski, international business development director at Greenbrier Europe, to gain insight in daily practices on the corridor. At 2.10 PM you can listen to Maciej Mastalerski, Managing Director of InterRail Poland. He will provide tangible examples of how the east-west rail supply chain operates, and how it is affecting China and Poland in particular.
Speaker interviews
We have already published several speaker interviews, to get a preview of what they will be talking about at the summit. We talked to Erik Groot-Wassink, Director of Special Products at NUNNER Logistics, the main sponsor of this event. He explained how NUNNER stepped out on the New Silk Road. We also heard Professor Richard Griffiths, who explained how a prevailing focus on the Europe-China northern rail freight route is detracting from the possibilities offered by southern Europe and Asia’s other diverse economies.
Onno de Jong, Consultant in Transport, Infrastructure & Mobility at European research company Ecorys, talked about the impact of the New Silk Road on ocean and air freight, current volumes and capacities, and the long-term prospects. The critical issue of security aboard freight trains was explained by Felix Scharwz, Expert in Telematic Solutions at Savvy Telematics.
Also in an interview, Klara Paardenkooper, Senior Lecturer at Rotterdam Business School shared her insights about blockchain technology, while Peter Plewa revealed what the impact of the Silk Road has been on Duisport, the largest European hub on the network.In the live blog, we will keep you updated about their presentations.
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