InterManager President Gerardo Borromeo has reaffirmed that his association will continue to serve as the strong voice for the shipmanagement sector during 2015.
In his New Year Message to InterManager members and the wider shipping industry, Mr Borromeo said: “In this age of international legislation and with the increasing requirements for monitoring and reporting within our industry, it is important to ensure that ship and crew managers have a voice on the world stage and I am determined that InterManager will continue to provide that loud voice.”
Highlighting the association’s achievements over the past year, he said membership of InterManager, which represents third party and in-house ship managers, has grown by eight percent – continuing the trend of recent years. InterManager members now manage more than 5,250 vessels and over 250,000 crew members worldwide.
InterManager members attended in force the association’s Annual General Meeting in Singapore in October which featured a new international conference – the International Shipowner and Shipmanagement Summit – which InterManager ran in conjunction with conference specialist Shipping Innovation. The 2015 AGM will be held in London in September, to coincide with the second London International Shipping Week.
InterManager has been at the forefront of industry projects and is delighted to announce that the Shipping KPI project, which it pioneered before it became a standalone initiative, now has more than 3,577 ships providing information to its database and 415 companies participating. This represents a doubling on the previous year’s figures.
Working with partner organisations and member companies, the association has been instrumental in progressing research on the Martha Project which addresses concerns seafarer fatigue. It has also embarked on a project which exams the role of psychometric testing aimed at better identifying core skills and excellence in seafarers.
In terms of initiatives aimed at improving overall conditions at sea, InterManager has completed a wide-ranging Crew Communication Survey and helped produce a useful glossary of terms used in the satellite communications industry.
Over the past year in its role as a permanent representative to the International Maritime Organisation, InterManager has submitted a Comment Paper on the PSC Guidelines under the Ballast Water Management Convention, commented on issues regarding Places of Refuge, submitted an Information Paper on Minimum Manning levels and contributed to a Comment Paper on the draft guidance on stripping operations using educators. 2015 will see the association continue to take an active role in international legislative matters on behalf of the ship management sector.
Mr Borromeo, who is Chief Executive of Philippine Transmarine Carriers Inc, said: “Crew are our industry’s greatest asset and one of a ship manager’s largest costs, so it is important that we actively support initiatives which endeavour to enhance their skills and competencies, driving for enhanced efficiency and productivity in output while working to improve working conditions on board. As managers it is ultimately our ability to continue to effectively adapt to an ever-changing seascape that will spell the difference in our future success. We serve an industry that is the backbone of global trade. Our responsibilities are, therefore, significant and not something we take lightly.”
