In International Shipping News 04/10/2016
Britain’s flagging power as a seafaring nation could put the country’s economic security at risk, according to maritime union Nautilus.
The body is warning that decades of decline in the number of British-registered vessels means the UK’s Merchant Navy is becoming “so depleted that our economy could be held to ransom” by other nations with stronger shipping industries.
Britain depends on the shipping industry for almost all of its goods exports and imports and Nautilus claims that without government action to protect the industry, it could become a danger to the UK’s prosperity.
Speaking ahead of the union’s conference on Tuesday, Mark Dickinson, general secretary, said: “Some 95pc of all our goods are brought to us by ship.
“Without our own shipping industry, we would become dangerously dependent on the fleets of other nations for the supply of critical goods, including food, oil and gas for heating, and even military equipment.”
Warning that Britain could face “sea strangulation”, he claimed foreign powers could control the volume and price of goods entering or leaving UK ports by manipulating shipping rates for UK’s £283bn of goods exports and £410bn of imports.
The scale of the decline of the UK as a maritime nation is stark. Britain currently ranks a lowly 19th in the table of countries with the biggest merchant fleets, at just 13.7m deadweight tonnes (dwt) according to government data. This represents just 0.8pc of the global fleet.
By comparison, in the 1975 ships flying the Merchant Navy’s Red Ensign 1975 weighed in at 52m dwt, representing 9.7pc of the global fleet.
In line with the drop in the number of British-registered ships, the number of seafarers has also plunged. Today there are 23,000 British officers and ratings, compared with 73,400 back in 1975.
Nautilus claims Brexit gives the UK a unique opportunity to promote its maritime industry free from Brussels controls and is issuing a 10-point charter of issues its sees as critical.
The union’s demands include financial support for the costs of training of seafarers, favouring employing British sailors over other nationalities and tax relief to encourage companies to register ships in the UK rather than using so-called “flags of convenience”. It is also wants the government to formulate a national maritime strategy.
Brexit delivering a boost to Britain’s £10bn-a-year maritime industry – which supports a total of 240,000 jobs through related industries such as insurance and shipbroking – has been raised before.
Last year the UK Chamber of Shipping warned that if Eurocrats were able to strengthen their grip on regulation, then Britain would be at a “competitive disadvantage”.
The chamber – which represents 170 major companies in the industry – has welcomed recent government action to help the sector. This has included £15m to fund training for UK seafarers, and plans to make the registering ships under the Red Ensign more business friendly.
However, the chamber questioned whether Britain could be “held to ransom” because of its declining merchant fleet and number of seafarers. The recent collapse of Hanjin highlights this, with the Korean shipping company falling victim to an oversupply of ships ordered before the financial crash now chasing not enough cargo to go around.
“For centuries the sea has been the UK’s gateway, it has never been its prison, and as an island it is our greatest natural resource,” said a spokesman for the chamber. “Shipping is the servant of world trade and will always be global. Countries benefit enormously from their trading relationship with the UK and it is in no-one’s interests to see this harmed.”
Source: The Telegraph
