ILO Minimum Wage for Seafarers to Stay at $614
The recommended International Labour Organization (ILO) Minimum Wage for Able Seafarers will remain at its current level of US$ 614 basic pay per month until at least 2018. This follows an ILO Joint Maritime Commission (JMC) meeting held in Geneva last week, comprising representatives of maritime employers co-ordinated by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and seafarers’ unions co-ordinated by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). ICS, in its role as an official ILO social partner, says that it firmly continues to support the global minimum wage, a concept unique to the international shipping industry. While the ILO minimum only refers to the basic wage for the non-officer grade of Able Seafarer…
SMM Hamburg Ready for a New Beginning
At the SMM Ship Finance Forum just ahead of SMM, the leading international maritime trade fair hamburg, experts will discuss the potential and prospects for new ship financing models. In spite of low newbuilding prices, the total number of ship orders is declining around the world. Financing difficulties are part of the problem, and new concepts are in demand to revitalise the market. "In ship finance we have to address two separate issues: On the one hand, we need to put the fleet in service on a more solid financial basis. After a five-year double crisis – one affecting the financial, the other the shipping markets – that may be a tall order. On the other hand we need to finance new tonnage to be commissioned over the next few years.
Structural Change in Coastal, Inland Shipping
Experts discuss potential solutions at the 9th ShortSea, Feeder and Inland Waterway Shipping Dialogue. Volatile freight and charter rates, high fuel prices, unemployed vessels and the problems of ship financing are leading to structural change in coastal and inland waterway shipping. Experts are agreed on that. Yet what does this actually mean for the future of the shortsea, feeder and inland waterway ship trades? And how can companies prepare for the transition? At the invitation of the ShortSea and Inland Waterway Shipping Promotion Center (SPC) and Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM), these and other questions on short sea and inland waterway shipping topics were discussed at the 9th ShortSea, Feeder and Inland Waterway Shipping Dialogue in the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on 11 October.
