Sea-Land veterans gather in Hong Kong to celebrate their
central role in the container revolution

BACK in the 1960s, talk was of revolution. The Chinese Cultural Revolution, the fashion revolution from London's Carnaby Street while the streets of San Fransciso, Paris and Prague seethed with riot and revolutionary fervor.
Unnoticed by these all but forgotten revolutionaries was another revolution taking place in their midst - the Container Revolution. More than a passing fashion, or a fashionable political enthusiasm, this revolution would change life as we know it by making things possible that had not been possible before.
This was "Box that Changed the World" as one book title put it. And last week 40 veterans of the company that started it all, Sea-Land, gathered at Hong Kong's Maritime Museum celebrate their lives and its achievements.  >More
 

Maersk Line may be the market leader, but its CEO is
still worried

THE chief executive of the Danish shipping group Maersk Line Soren Skou admits that, despite leading the pack in terms of profitability, he's still a worried man and is kept awake at night thinking about how to make money in the east-west trades.
Even though the shipping line produced very strong results at a time when a number of other global carriers are still in the red, Mr Skou is clearly far from complacent and sees many obstacles in his way as he strives to achieve the line's long-term target of a 10 per cent return on invested capital.
"It's a big worry for me that north-south trade growth is not near what it should be, because of course as the big ships are phased into the east-west trades  >More
 

BIMCO develops new electronic bill of lading clause for
dry cargo

THE Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) has developed a specific clause for charter parties, known as the BIMCO e-Bill Clause, which seeks to address the use of electronic bills of lading (e-Bills) documentation.
The initiative aims to cope with growing interest from the dry cargo market (in particular, dry bulk charterers) in the use of electronic documentation. It is part of a general drive towards developing electronic solutions for facilitating trade in shipping.
The e-Bill clause was developed in consultation with owners/charterers' groups, the UK P&I Club and electronic systems providers, Bolero and ESS. >More
 

European statism: Regulatory cholesterol that clogs EU's
business arteries

EUROPEAN economic weakness has revived concern about the direction of global growth. To some, fleeting patches of good news seem like flashbacks to yet other nascent recoveries that turn into false dawns.
One can wonder whether European growth has suffered a form of arterial stenosis clogging up the works. Clearly something's amiss. Italy is back in recession, and German growth has faltered and France has "stabilised" at zero growth, and is struggling with political impasse.
While many are in a quandary, others identify the supposed cure - government regulation - as the disease, that enervating obesity of complexity that for safety's sake must cover every conceivable risk with smothering mothering scolding, which makes big projects too difficult to contemplate without massive state involvement. >More
 

Automation and intra-agency co-operation best way forward:
TPM speakers

AUTOMATION was said to be the best road to shipping success by speakers at the TPM Asia Conference at the Hotel Intercontinental in Shenzhen this week.
But automation in the widest sense - from the interoperability of ship and shore gear to a more automatic co-operation between often mistrustful waterfront agencies whose interface problems gum up the works.
Before each speaker agreed with the last one that this was the way forward, adding to a widening the definition of automation as they did so, they each addressed their own areas of concern.
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Shipowners welcome EU's five-year extension of consortia
legality

THE World Shipping Council (WSC), the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) and the International Chamber of Shipping and ICS, have welcomed the EU's extension of consortium exemption for another five years until April 2020.
The move comes as consortia regulation No 906/2009 is to expire in April 2015.
The Global Shippers' Forum (GSF), on the other hand, is calling for a repeal of the European block exemption that allows greater scope for operational alliances in which the ships are run in united ship management system, but function independently in sales and customer service.
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