By Jean Christou
AROUND 12 of the participants in this year’s Maritime Cyprus conference in Limassol have pulled out because of the recent terrorist attack in the US, shipping officials said yesterday.
The shipping industry is still in the early stages of evaluating the implications, but chief among its concerns will be the huge increase in insurance costs to ports already earmarked as risky.
The issues are likely to be raised in depth during the three-day conference, which begins on Monday, and is also scheduled to discuss industry-related issues.
These include forecasting for tankers, bulkers and containers, ship financing and rating trends in marine insurance, ports and cruising developments in the east Mediterranean, challenges and prospects in shipping, maritime industrial relations and marine environment protection.
Some 900 prominent shipowners, insurers, bankers, lawyers, accountants
and individuals dealing with maritime issues will attend the conference, which has been held in Cyprus every two years since 1989.
The vice-president of the European Commission responsible for Transport, Loyola de Palacio, will also brief participants on EU developments in shipping, while Cyprus` chief EU negotiator George Vassiliou will outline efforts by Cyprus to adopt EU legislation on the sector.
Vassos Pyrgos, permanent secretary of the Communications and Works Ministry, told a news conference, called in Nicosia yesterday to launch Maritime Cyprus, that the island’s shipping industry was leading the way towards Europe.
He said the closure of the transport chapter in May this year constituted recognition that the Cyprus ship register could no longer be accused of being a flag of convenience.
Cyprus has long suffered image problems by having an open ship registry, a fact that has, however, put the island sixth place in the world on the list of maritime nations, with around 2,700 vessels to its name.
The government has been fighting a long battle to improve the image of the flag in recent years, with an increase in the number of inspectors placed in foreign ports and several substandard ships being struck from the registry.
The number of detentions in foreign ports is also down, according to Pyrgos. He said the rate averaged out at around 150 every year, but that these detentions did not involve serious safety issues.
I believe we should again stress that with the closing of the sea transport chapter the future of the Cypriot fleet and maritime industry look good,” he said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
