İMEAK DTO Chair: Shipping should be treated as a strategic industry

MDN İstanbul

IMEAK Chamber of Shipping Chairman Tamer Kıran shares views on shipping industry

Tamer Kıran, head of the Istanbul and Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean and Black Sea Regions Chamber of Shipping (IMEAK DTO), an influential maritime organization in Turkey, has shared his views with MarineDeal News readers on the global and domestic prospects in the shipping industry.
Kıran’s assessment is below:
Currently, about 90 percent of world trade is conducted through sea routes. These operations take place, give or take some exceptional trade deals, in a completely free market in an industry where more than a million people of almost every nation are employed at more than 50,000 ships of 300gt and above.
It won’t be wrong to say that the shipping industry is the key to the global economy, looking at the industry from the view of the description of its mission as facilitating the “flow of information, resources, commodities and services across borders.”
Owing to this quality, the shipping industry is seen as a strategic sector worldwide.
Although the global shipping industry felt the effects of the 2008 financial crisis for a few years, the industry had to face a real and direct marine trade crisis starting in 2012. By 2018, macroeconomic risks had assumed a more clear focus and by the end of the year global economic growth gained a relative level of stability. This has reflected on the shipping industry as a 2.6 percent growth in trade volume. If the trend continues, the volume of trade by see will expand by another 2.8 percent by this year’s end.

Looking at Turkey in view of
these global developments:

Turkey, which was subject to the effects of the global economic crisis since 2008 performed better than other economies, however the international structure of the marine industry and the overall measures taken in world economies to protect the sector have not adequately been applied to our national shipping industry. For this reason, the Turkish shipping industry and all its relevant industries have been affected negatively. Despite the profound effects of the crisis, administrative measures and foresighted steps taken by our shipping industry players have led our seaborne trade to grow to 324 million tons from 213,6 million tons since 2008. In the same period, the size of the fleet controlled by Turkish owners has grown to 28,589 dwt from 13,183 million dwt, and the size of the fleet in terms of vessel figures has increased to 1,484 ships from 1,003 previously.

We export vessels with high
added value

At the current point where we stand, the Turkish sea trade fleet cargo carrying capacity has reached the 15th place as of the end of 2018.
Other components that are part of Turkey’s shipping industry have achieved similar feats. As part of these developments, in 2018, 460 million tons of cargo were handled at 180 ports and harbors.
As of 2019, the number of our shipyards has grown to 78 and our shipbuilding capacity has reached 4,44 million dwt. As of March 2019, there are 134 vessels on our order books (putting us in the fourth place after China, Japan and South Korea), and most of these orders are for tugboats. Today at our yards such vessels with high added value as LNG-fueled hybrid passenger and vehicle ferries, LNG fuelled tugboats, and tugboats with hydraulic hybrid transfer systems that ran on LNG fuel and remote-controlled boats are being built for foreign customers.
Additionally, our yards are increasingly gaining a more active role in the defense industry, meeting our naval needs with domestic and national production and our yards have also exported coast guard boats to customers abroad.
In addition to these developments, our yards have made a big step in becoming a regional repair base with a total repair and maintenance capacity of 22,000,000 DWT.

Turkey ranked 4th in
superyacht production

In terms of the state of affairs of orderbooks globally, Turkey ranks fourth in the world for Super Yacht (24 meters and above) orders with 3,000 meters of length and 41,553 of tonnage in yachts having been ordered at Turkish yards.
Although ship and yacht exports, which came in at 990 million dollars in 2018, decreased by 26 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year, negotiations with both EU nations and various other countries are continuing to improve this volume.

Even though sea tourism figures achieved in 2014 could not be repeated in recent years, the relative increase in 2018 revenues is expected to continue in 2019 in comparison with 2017. In this context, the number of marinas and other mooring facilities has reached 83 and our mooring capacity has reached 27,360 boats.
In terms of cruise ship tourism, 247 vessels with a total of 213,771 passengers onboard have visited Turkish ports. Already, contracts being signed at this time indicate that this figure will increase significantly with new cruise ports, especially in Istanbul, going into service starting 2019.
In light of these developments and data, we believe that the development of our maritime sector and the added value that will be provided to our country will increase even further from 2019, of course all of this being dependent on regional and global developments.

In particular, we hope to develop our technological capabilities not only to meet the demands of the Turkish sea transportation sector but also to meet global and regional needs in accordance with international standards and to increase our contribution to Turkey’s economy with this technological dimension our industry offers.
As part of these efforts, we follow closely efforts by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to protect the marine environment.

We are continuing our search for applicable solutions to ensure that our ships are sensitive to the environment as part of processes identified by IMO. To this end, we want to cooperate with countries and transportation companies that would like to benefit from our skills in newbuilds, eco-ship construction and vessel fortification.
Given the importance of our shipping industry in the global economy, we believe that treating the marine industry as a strategic sector for the national industry , as is the case in every part of the world, would lead to a higher contribution from shipping to our country’s economic and technological advancement.

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