Cape Town Venue for Recent ICOMIA Congress

The 2012 ICOMIA/FBSO Congress was held in Capetown, hosted by newly formed Marine Industry Association of South Africa (MIASA)

After registration, delegates were taken on industry site visits to view rig designers, Southern Spars; large sailing-yacht builders, Southern Wind Shipyard, and the state-of-the-art facilities at Quantum Sails, which produce sails for multihulls and keelboats. Two more industry visits followed at catamaran builders Robertson and Caine and Two Oceans Marine.

Congress commenced on Wednesday 18 April, and consisted of various committee meetings and the annual ICOMIA/IFBSO Joint Session was held on the Friday. The key note speakers were Michael Lalor of Ernst and Young, who spoke about the African market; Liesl Nel of Moorings, who gave a presentation on the global charter market; Ian Calvert of Instant Grass, who discussed ‘The Emerging African Consumer’; Guy Lundy of Accelerate Cape Town who shared his expertise on Africa and world economics, and Thom Dammrich of National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) who reported on NMMA initiative, ‘Go Boating’.

The last day of Congress consisted of the ICOMIA Annual General Meeting and a Working Session, where Peter Methven (BMF) was elected as the new President of ICOMIA, taking over from Lorenzo Selva (Italian UCINA). Romano Piculjan (Croatian CBIA) was elected as Vice President and Yavuz Sipahi (Turkish DENTUR) was elected as 2nd Vice President.

Next year’s ICOMIA/IFBSO Congress will be held in London, United Kingdom.