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Wednesday,Jan 06,2010
INTERMANAGER president Roberto Giorgi has called on the shipping industry to be more proactive in its defence of seafarers in 2010.
He pledged that in 2010 the shipmanagers’ organisation will “pull out all the stops in support of crew members worldwide”.
Mr Giorgi said that with 2010 being declared the Year of the Seafarer by the International Maritime Organization, it will be a very important year. The following year will see implementation of the Maritime Labour Convention.
“I believe in 2010 and 2011 there will be much more effort and commitment from everybody, the IMO included, to try to find a solution not just on criminalisation but also on piracy.”
He said that he was heartened by the support throughout the shipping world for the release of the jailed officers from the tanker Hebei Spirit in South Korea.
“Now, in the Year of the Seafarer, our campaign will be even stronger and I am sure we can count on even greater support from the industry.”
He called for international legislation to enable all shipowners to adopt the same tactics to protect crews and ships from pirate attacks.
“What we need is to have one way to fight piracy rather than different approaches from different countries,” he said.
However, Mr Giorgi also recognised that 2010 is likely to be another difficult year for many shipowners.
“In 2009 a lot of shipowners were emerging from the previous years of good markets so they had healthy balance sheets and cash reserves,” he said. “Now, particularly in a business like containers, I see a lot of distressed assets. Owners and shipmanagers will need to ensure the costs are right, but I do foresee some problems for some owners.”
Malcolm Willingale
Group Communications
V.Group
Tel: +44 207 489 0088
E-mail: Malcolm Willingale