For many countries the marine, costal and maritime sectors represent an important foundation for sustainable development. This is why in order to deliver and achieve it, many countries extend their economy beyond land based activities. A sustainable blue economy in every country depends not only on their maritime and marine zones, but also on their existing economic activities and their issues regarding the environmental, social, and cultural conditions. The main objective of the "blue economy" is to ensure environmental sustainability while promoting social inclusion, economic growth and preservation or improvement of livelihoods [1,2]. According to the World Bank in Europe, the Blue Economy represents nearly 5.4 million jobs and generates a gross added value of approximately €500 billion per year. In order to have a sustainable blue economy each country should find the best way to balance sustainability and economic growth to allow optimal use of maritime resources, ensuring at the same time maximum benefit to the environment. Throughout this paper, we tried to emphasize the economic impact of the Blue economy, by analyzing the key sectors: maritime transport, cruise tourism, aquaculture and offshore oil and gas. In each country, some of these sectors need little encouragement and additional governance, while others required better and more efficient planning in order to obtain sustainable outcomes.

Strategic management ensures the identification of environmental opportunities and threats that a sector or an organization must face in order to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Transport is recognized as a key factor in the strategy of a long term development, economic growth and quality of life. In this sense, a transport system that offers a maximum economic and social impact must be developed in order to minimize the negative effects. Considering this aspects, we must highlight that important economic changes, trade growth, technological development or environmental issues have a major impact on the maritime industry in general and on port activities in particular. The favourable maritime opening of Romania, which through the port of Constanta is one of the main distribution centers for Central and Eastern Europe, ensures the necessary premises for an economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main strategic management decisions needed in the field of maritime transport in order to ensure increased performance. We will also try to demonstrate the strategic importance that the management of the port has (through updated strategic decisions and objectives) in terms of its competitiveness in foreign trade. An analysis will be performed on the port of Constanta based on which we will identify the main decisions and strategic objectives to ensure its development and increase its competitiveness at European and global level.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract