THE VICE President of the European Commission Loyola De Palacio will be among the top speakers at this year’s bi-annual Maritime Cyprus Conference, which will be held in Limassol from September 22-24.
De Palacio, who is also responsible for Transport, Energy, and Relations with the European Parliament, will speak on the EU’s shipping policy with regard to quality and competitiveness.
William O’Neill, the outgoing secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), will also address the conference, which expects to host 800 delegates from 35 countries.
“The primary task of the conference is to host a truly fully-fledged conference, where we are going to have a wide spectrum of subjects covered, in addition to IMO and EU developments,” said Thomas Kozakos, general-secretary of the Cyprus Shipping Council (CSC).
Kozakos said another new innovation for Maritime 2003, titled “Widening Shipping Horizons”, would be daily debates, primarily on issues of security stemming from September 11, flag responsibilities and maritime industrial relations.
“On all these three debates, you will see names of panellists or moderators who are all top experts in their individual fields from international organisations, ship owners or seafarers,” Kozakos said.
He also pointed out that this year’s would be the last Maritime Cyprus prior to EU accession. The first Maritime Cyprus conference was held in 1989 as a means to promote Cyprus as a shipping centre.
Kozakos said that now Cyprus was one of the top three international shipping conferences in the world along with Norway and Japan.
“Most of the other conferences are combinations of an exhibition or a training seminars so the attraction of Cyprus has been maintained over the years and it’s quite difficult for eight consecutive times to do that,” Kozakos said.
“We are trying to reflect that in the programme, although it has to be stressed that it is an international conference and not a regional conference and it’s not a marketing pitch,” he added.
He added the calibre of the speakers reflected the respect and recognition of the substance of the shipping infrastructure in Cyprus by both the international shipping fraternity as represented by the IMP, as well as the European perspective represented by the EU.
The conference will he held at the newly-converted Evagoras Lanitis Centre in Limassol.
