The paper aims at pointing out the role of maritime and port industries of European Countries. A particular attention is paid to Italy within the global economic competition context. Moreover, the paper stresses the importance for merchant fleets in running intermodal ports and terminals. In Italy, the lack of an important fleet is the reason why almost all terminals containers are run by foreign company (e.g. Genoa, Trieste and Taranto). In this context, the recent law that establishes an off-shore register seems to result rather ineffective due to the choice of a fiscal discount based on taxable income and not on a more objective base (for all actors playing the global competition) such as the registered tonnage