Caribbean port authorities · est. 1998
Many Ports,
One People.
PMAC is the association of Caribbean port authorities and the companies that serve them. We pool training, experience and regional weight so that every member port runs better than it could alone.
Our mission
To foster operational and financial efficiency across Caribbean ports.
PMAC exists to raise the level of service that member ports give their users — by sharing experience, training, information and ideas for the mutual benefit of Caribbean ports and their stakeholders.
The region's ports are not only commercial. Across the Caribbean they are the route by which food, clothing and building materials arrive, which makes them a matter of everyday survival as much as of trade. A port that runs badly is felt in the shops within the week.
The Association held its inaugural meeting in Antigua on 26 June 1998, succeeding the Port Management Association of the Eastern Caribbean, established on 16 May 1988. Its central objective has not changed since: improve the proficiency of member ports, principally by making the right training available to the right people.
The problem we were formed to solve
Ports built for a different century.
Much of the Caribbean's port infrastructure dates from the 1960s and was laid out for break-bulk cargo — sacks, drums and pallets worked by hand. The vessels calling today are container ships and cruise ships several times that size. Berths, cranes and channels built for one era are being asked to serve another.
Individually, a small port struggles to be heard in an industry that negotiates in hundreds of thousands of containers, and it faces different tariffs, legislation and regulation from its neighbours. Together, the same ports are an entire region's cargo and cruise gateway. That is the whole argument for the Association, and it has not changed since 1998.
Where the members are
From Bermuda to the Guianas.
What membership gives you
Four things a port cannot build on its own.
Training that transfers
Courses built for port operations and delivered across the membership, so a skill learned in one harbour reaches the others.
A working network
Direct contact with the officials who run member ports, and with regional and international suppliers who already have a track record in the Caribbean.
One voice, not thirty
Advocacy for Caribbean ports at multilateral level, so that ports of every size are represented when decisions are taken globally.
Standing agreements
Memoranda of understanding with strategic partners, so cooperation on shared objectives is already in place when a member needs it.
The Annual General Meeting
Once a year, in one room.
PMAC holds an annual meeting where port owners, operators and stakeholders work through the challenges and opportunities in front of Caribbean ports. The 28th annual meeting was held in Willemstad, Curaçao.
The meeting is where local detail becomes regional policy: a port describes what it ran into over the past year, and the room works out whether it is one port's problem or everyone's. Associate members join the open sessions, which is where a good deal of the training and supplier contact actually starts.
Who runs the Association
The Executive Committee.
The membership
Thirty ports, one association.
Bring your port into the network.
Port and Associate membership both open the same doors: shared training, regional advocacy, and direct access to the people running Caribbean ports. The Secretariat will walk you through the application.