On the occasion of the 90 -th anniversary of Klaipėda Seaport – a history forum

On the 31st of May, 2013 the Port Authority in cooperation with Lithuanian Maritime Museum organized the forum about the history of Klaipėda Seaport „90 years to Lithuanian Klaipėda Port“.

2013 is a special year to Klaipėda Port as the 90th anniversary when the Port was transferred to Lithuania is being commemorated. Klaipėda Port Authority and Lithuanian Maritime Museum organized the historical forum „90 years to Lithuanian Klaipėda Port“.

The Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Lithuania Saulius Girdauskas, the Mayor of Klaipėda City Vytautas Grubliauskas were among the participants and Director General Arvydas Vaitkus addressed the quests of the forum with the welcoming opening speech.

Documents on the transfer of Klaipėda Port to Lithuania, circumstances and historical figures, unknown documents from the historical archive of Latvia were presented to participants of this forum. The development of Klaipėda Port with reference to infrastructure development and in economic and political aspect, the significance of Klaipėda Port and perspectives were reviewed during this forum.

Klaipėda Port developed together with independence of Lithuania and experienced interesting and variable periods – starting from the first steps into the foreign markets, modest investments, fluctuations of cargo turnover within the period of 1990-1999, a sudden jump of handling rates in 2000-2008, a slump that occurred due to economic stagnation in 2009 and a new increase wave in 2010-2011. And, looking into the future, it must be stated that large scale investments up to 514 million litas into the development of port infrastructure and implementation of new projects planned for the period of 2012-2014 will open the new page in the history of the Port.