New CEO for Antwerp Port Authority

Eddy Bruyninckx, CEO of the Antwerp Port Authority for 25 years, will retire on December 31. He will be succeeded by Jacques Vandermeiren.

Previously, Vandermeiren was CEO and President of the Executive Committee of the network operator Elia, a listed company, where he held various management positions since joining it in 2001. Before that he worked for 11 years as Senior Advisor Strategy Direction with the energy company Electrabel.

Vandermeiren has occupied various directorships with among others Febeg (Federation of Belgian Energy Companies) and the Federation of Belgian Enterprises. He is also co-founder of the Belgian sustainability platform The Shift, as well as co-investor in Qpinch, which generates energy from waste heat, and in Uest, which markets the Zembro personal alarm. Finally, Vandermeiren is a director of the Vascobelo Group, an upmarket Belgian coffee brand with Antwerp as its home port.

Vandermeiren graduated as Master of Laws, a qualification which he later supplemented with a master’s in European Studies, a Middle Management course with the Vlerick Business School and an Advanced Management Programme with the INSEAD Business School. 

Record Freight Volumes for 2016

The port of Antwerp will close 2016 with an expected record volume of more than 214 million tons of freight handled. Shipping container volume rose above 10 million TEUs for the first time in the history of the port. Liquid bulk is also showing year-on-year expansion, and with an estimated volume of just under 70 million tons it’s the second main foundation on which freight growth in Antwerp is based.

Conventional breakbulk and dry bulk sectors remain positive, although overall the totals for both segments are negative. The continuing trend towards containerization has depressed the volumes of products such as fruit and paper. Meanwhile the volumes of coal and ore have fallen drastically in all North-West European ports.