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When you think of a port, you don’t immediately think of Meppel. The truth is different. The Zwolle region will be designated as the fourth economic region of the Netherlands in 2030 and the port will play an important role in this. With huge transshipment companies, large factories and a daily influx of full container ships, it is a major logistics hub on the Drenthe. The municipality of Meppel and the port company Port of Zwolle are betting on growth: the port can extend over 30 hectares.
This has been thoroughly investigated in recent months. The municipality hopes to present the report in the coming weeks, before the municipal elections. But she is now looking at land belonging to the neighbors, the municipality of Staphorst.
The port of Meppel is full of containers. Each container has a unique license plate and betrays its origin: they come from all over the world. However, port employees point to a few empty spaces. Rows of containers could be even wider, but it was Chinese New Year for the past few weeks. “Then trade from China will stop completely.” So it can be even busier.
Ships sail daily between Meppel and the deep water ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. Both are important: Rotterdam is the transshipment of ships to the Far East, Antwerp is traditionally the port to Africa. Every day a ship with a hundred containers leaves Meppel and the same number returns.
The port staff know the regular customers. Retail companies such as Action and Blokker are getting large containers with store inventory from Asia. Raw materials for food products are also imported from all over the world. For example, containers with baby food from several factories in the area go the other way.
Meppel is sold out
Next to the container terminal are other businesses such as marinas, transshipment companies and an asphalt plant. A large feed and fertilizer manufacturer brings many raw materials to Meppel by ship. A lot is still fallow: it has just been sold. The very last. This is the crux of the matter: Meppel is full and for a good economy it has to consider expansion, says Alderman for Economics Henk ten Hulscher.
“The port is very important to us as Meppel,” he says. “We cooperate with the ports of Zwolle and Kampen under the name ‘Port of Zwolle’. Together we have an economic value of 500 million euros. We do not always realize in Meppel that this is a lot. expansion is necessary, we can not do otherwise.”
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