Never in the history of shipping has so much changed in so short a time, Anglo-Eastern Group CEO Peter Cremers told the annual post-Christmas press luncheon in the Gun Room of the Royal Hong Kong Yatch Club last week.
The amount of tonnage on order is "scary" said Mr Cremers, whose appointment as chairman of the Hong Kong Ship Owners Association, was also announced.
Hong Kong Ship Owners Association managing director Arthur Bowring told the gathering that it was the first time a non-ship owner had been elected to head the organisation.
Anglo-Eastern is a ship management company with a fleet of 250 vessels in its care, of which 50 are containerships. Most are bulkers together with 60-80 tankers as well as scores of heavy-lift semi-submersibles and chemical carriers.
Last week, the company inaugurated its online web-cam educational testing system, whereby candidates for officer training and those seeking promotions take tests from where ever they are in the world in full view of testers at the Hong Kong head office.
"That way we can see what they know and not what they may have had sent in from someone else," said Mr Cremers.
The company said the system would be also be used not only to discover whether those seeking promotions were up to speed, but to determine the subjects in which they needed further training.
One executive admitted people at the low-end of maritime life were regarded as the "wretched of the earth", and faced serious immigration problems whenever they went ashore in developed countries.
This annoyed Mr Cremers: "Airline people get priority treatment when they come into airports. We will work on improving the status of seafarers internationally - after all, they are professionals running an industry that is critical for the world markets and everybody's day to day life."
Another factor overlooked by non-maritime people, he said, was the degree to which the profession had changed.
One of the executives interjected: "You don't join the merchant service to see the world these days. You hardly see anything at all - just container yards."
Was this hard on seafarers? "No," said Mr Cremers. "Some may disagree, but they are at sea for four to six months. In the old days, when they went ashore and ports were in the centre of cities, they were often at sea for a year with no mail, or very little, and very expensive telephone charges. Now they have email and telephone charges are not high. The adventure has gone from the life and the job is more professional."
Social concerns, such as environmentalism and sensitivity to racism, are also concerns. "Many clients prefer mixed crews, but we don't," he said, having explained that 60 per cent of their crew comes from India (6,000), with the Philippines (1,200) and the Ukraine (1,200) providing most of the rest.
Asked why, one of the executives interjected: "People panic in their own language. During in an emergency people must understand each other. Sometimes when a Filipino says, 'yes' to an Indian - or vice versa - it means that he heard, but he may not have understood. You don't want that in an emergency."
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