Viewpoint – Page 5
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Nowhere to hide
COMMENT: Pundits have been saying for years that container lines need to merge or bow out to bring the box trade back to some semblance of normality. Hapag-Lloyd and UASC took note with a merger deal, while CMA CGM swallowed up NOL along with its sizable debts.
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Slow burner
After nearly ten years of speculation on its global impact, the world finally has an expanded Panama Canal.
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Private concerns
COMMENT: I’m going to resist the urge to write about container weighing or the catchily named verified gross mass requirements of the incoming SOLAS amendments, writes Carly Fields.
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Take responsibility
The countdown clock is tick, tick, ticking down for terminals to take their stance on container weighing. Before we collectively stifle a yawn - this has been on the radar for at least two years, no matter how many complain of its ''last minuteness'' - terminals really need to get ...
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NewsSecond time lucky
And so the merry-go-round continues: Deutsche Bank is offloading its container terminal at the Port of New York and New Jersey to another infrastructure-focused business, namely Macquarie.
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NewsStop the spin
COMMENT: I’ve tried to avoid being dragged into the Brexit – will the ‘British exit’ the European Union – debate for two reasons: it’s a parochial topic that I’m sure the rest of the world couldn’t care less about and the whole issue is broadly dominated by spin, pitting politicians ...
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Take the blinkers off
Too many variables in an industry powered by direct negotiation and awash with commercial sensitivities; they’re the main arguments defining why an independent online booking app would not work for ports.
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Groundhog day
Third time’s a charm? Not for the European Port Services Regulation. For 15 years, the European Commission has been trying to regulate the bloc’s port industry, with no success.
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All-rounder regulations
COMMENT: Ballast water isn’t the sexiest thing to talk about in shipping, writes Carly Fields.
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Getting the message out
COMMENT: Our innate ability to overtly promote ourselves as an industry means that we are failing to get the message out about the significance and the excitement of ports. We need some fresh thinking, writes Carly Fields.
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In a bubble
COMMENT: China''s having a tough time of it. While its economic slowdown is old news - shipping markets have had over a year to adjust to falling demand from the Asian juggernaut – its ports are now under scrutiny, writes Carly Fields.
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Smartening up
COMMENT: A new buzzword is tunnelling through the industry: smart. But it means very different things to different people. An interesting discussion in our LinkedIn group revealed just how diverse people’s interpretation of this simple word can be, writes Carly Fields.
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Sound the trumpet
COMMENT: There’s nothing like a bit of pressure to really push boundaries. In the case of APM Terminals, most of that pressure is of its own making when it comes to its Maasvlakte II terminal, writes Carly Fields.
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Out of sight
COMMENT: Statisticians claim that a ship arrives or departs Singapore every two to three minutes. Normally, you need to take statistics of that ilk with a pinch of salt and ask what a port authority might stand to gain from artificially inflating that figure.
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Fight for survival
So the US West Coast labour hullabaloo is finally over. It took Obama’s loan of US secretary of labour Thomas Perez to help broker a deal after a federal mediator failed to find common ground between the two sides. Perez’s imposition of a deal deadline saw both sides jump to ...
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NewsCosco ordered to pay back Piraeus EU aid
COMMENT: Just as Piraeus concessionaire Cosco re-found its favour with the new Greek authorities, the fraught relationship is under pressure yet again, this time by European Commission interjections, writes Carly Fields.
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Fight or flight?
COMMENT: Just as the goalposts came into view, the Chinese have seen their port privatisation dreams in Greece not just moved but completely dismantled and removed from the field, writes Carly Fields.
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NewsIs there a case for penalties?
COMMENT: I was recently in the audience of an animated conference discussion about the pros and cons of introducing rewards and penalties at ports handling containers. It was an interesting debate, but it left me feeling sceptical about whether such a scheme could work, writes Carly Fields.
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NewsTime for a touch of humanity
COMMENT: A life at sea is not the glamorous posting that it used to be. Long stretches away from family and friends, limited social cohesion because of a lack of common language and risk of attack or even hijack in some parts of the world, writes Carly Fields.
