The mayor of the Turkish city of Çanakkale visits the Port of Tarragona

The Turkish delegation was interested in the innovative projects promoted by the Port

Tarragona and Çanakkale are part of a European Smart Cities project

This Friday the Port of Tarragona received a delegation from Çanakkale, a Turkish municipality with a population of nearly 100,000 that is participating, along with Tarragona, in a European project on the future of smart cities. The director of the Port’s Strategy, Quality and Innovation Department, Josep Maria Maceira, received Mayor Ülgur Gökhan and his party at the Tarragona Port Authority (TPA) headquarters, where he explained the  innovative projects promoted by the Port of Tarragona.

The delegation from Çanakkale was able to see for itself the “Som-Inn Port, Port of Tarragona Innovation Ecosystem”, a project that is being developed within the framework of the Port Innovation Plan and is conceived as a space in which the Port Community and all the Port stakeholders can cooperate on innovating in all its processes, services and business models. The project, which is based on open innovation, allows the organisations involved to combine their internal and external knowledge to offer solutions to strategic challenges.

During their visit, the 22 members of the Turkish delegation were able to learn about other European innovation projects in which the TPA has taken part..

The Turkish delegation, which arrived in Tarragona on Monday and will be here until 12 July, adds to the Port’s experiences in the area of smart cities, as part of its programme of technical meetings in the framework of the “Partnership for the Future of Smart Cities” project. The objective of this project is to exchange experiences of governance and common projects and to apply for a grant under the European Union’s “Town Twinning Actions”, which has a budget of 100,000 euros.

Çanakkale is a city on the Asian side of Turkey, at the narrowest point of the Dardanelles, near the archaeological remains of ancient Abydos. It has a small port for passenger and cargo vessels, the latter carrying a wide range of
merchandise, including general and bulk cargo, oil, chemicals, vehicles and containers.