Ethiopian Maritime Training Institute hosts IMO delegation

Officials from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) recently completed a fact-finding mission to the Ethiopian Maritime Training Institute (EMTI) in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Juvenal Shiundu and William Azuh from IMO’s Technical Co-operation Division, assisted by officials from the Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority and from EMTI, undertook the mission as part of an effort to give effect to this year's World Maritime Day theme of Maritime Education and Training.

EMTI provides specialised training for deck, engineer and electro-technical officers for ships, in compliance with the IMO’s STCW Convention, which specifies global standards of training, certification and watchkeeping for seafarers.

A partnership between Bahir Dar University and the US-based investment firm, YCF Group, EMTI currently graduates up to 500 cadets per year, and plans soon to expand its capacity to train over 1,000 seafarers annually. After completing a rigorous training programme at the maritime academy, EMTI cadets begin their careers as junior crew members with leading shipping companies on a global basis.

The demand for Ethiopian seafarers has grown rapidly in recent years, and EMTI is the exclusive marine officer training academy in Ethiopia. During a recent visit to EMTI in Bahir Dar, the Honorable Patricia M Haslach, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia, said, “The US has an old and cherished maritime heritage, and we are pleased and excited to help foster a maritime tradition in Ethiopia as well.”

Pini Shwartz, CEO of EMTI, says, “We are greatly encouraged by the interest shown in EMTI by IMO, whose representatives acknowledged during their recent fact-finding mission the progress made by EMTI since it was set up in 2008. They also offered advice on ways to maintain - and, where possible, improve – the effectiveness of the academy, plus assistance with the likes of IMO publications and reference books, which is greatly appreciated.

“EMTI has developed rapidly in a relatively short period of time to become one of the largest quality maritime training institutes in the world, with vast potential for further growth. That growth, of course, will be achieved in line with IMO standards and ideals.”

The Ethiopian Maritime Training Institute is a private company established to provide professional maritime training for Ethiopian engineering graduates. Through its elite maritime training programme, EMTI has established superior standards for selecting and training its cadets to become world-class marine engineers. It is as subsidiary operation of the YCF Group which, through its complementary entities, has developed an exhaustive range of regulatory compliance and training services

www.emticorp.com

EMTI selected as finalist for Lloyd’s List training award

The Ethiopian Maritime Training Institute (EMTI) has been confirmed as a finalist for the Lloyd’s List 2015 Global Training Award. The award goes to a company or institution which can demonstrate having made a contribution towards improving training standards.

EMTI currently graduates up to 500 cadets per year, and plans soon to expand its capacity to train over 1,000 seafarers annually, ranging from ratings to engine and deck officers. After completing a rigorous training programme at the maritime academy, EMTI cadets begin their careers as junior crew members with leading shipping companies on a global basis.

EMTI is a partnership between Bahir Dar University and the US-based investment firm, YCF Group. The demand for Ethiopian seafarers has grown rapidly in recent years, and EMTI is the exclusive marine officer training academy in Ethiopia. During a recent visit to EMTI in Bahir Dar, the Honorable Patricia M Haslach, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia, said, “The US has an old and cherished maritime heritage, and we are pleased and excited to help foster a maritime tradition in Ethiopia as well.”

Pini Shwartz, CEO of EMTI, says, “Being nominated for the Lloyd’s List training award is fitting recognition of the enormous strides made by EMTI in a short space of time, to become one of the largest quality maritime training institutes in the world, with vast potential for further growth.”

The Ethiopian Maritime Training Institute is a private company established to provide professional maritime training for Ethiopian engineering graduates. Through its elite maritime training programme, EMTI has established superior standards for selecting and training its cadets to become world-class marine engineers and electrical technical engineers. It is as subsidiary operation of the YCF Group which, through its complementary entities, has developed an exhaustive range of regulatory compliance and training services.

www.emticorp.com

Liberian Registry selected as finalist for Lloyd’s List innovation award

An environmental initiative launched by the Liberian Registry to help reduce global carbon emissions and to enhance fleet efficiency and competitiveness has been selected as a finalist for the Lloyd’s List 2015 Global Innovation Award.

The award recognises innovative projects which have demonstrated, or have verified potential, to move shipping forward. Scott Bergeron, chief executive officer of the Liberian International Ship & Corporate Registry (LISCR), the US-based manager of the registry, and a principal of global marine service provider the YCF Group, says, “We are delighted to have been nominated for this prestigious award. The Liberian Registry is an environmentally aware and responsible operator, always looking to help shipowners improve their green credentials and meet other corporate social responsibilities. This nomination confirms that Liberia is committed to remaining the greenest fleet afloat.”

The LISCR environmental initiative offers a complete energy-saving solution for ships on a global basis with an add-on specifically crafted for Emissions Control Areas (ECAs). The global programme includes an optimal mix of fuel efficiency retrofit solutions for each target vessel, based on its trading pattern, age, size, speed, and consumption. For ships trading within ECA zones, the programme can include the installation of exhaust scrubber systems or the conversion of engines to LNG dual-fuel, to comply with emissions requirements.

The Liberian Registry is one of the world’s largest and most active shipping registers and has long been considered the world’s most technologically advanced maritime administration. It has a long-established track record of combining the highest standards of safety for vessels and crews with the highest levels of responsive service to owners. It is a subsidiary operation of the YCF Group which, through its complementary entities, has developed an exhaustive range of regulatory compliance and training services, providing shipowners with comprehensive flag administration options on a global scale.

www.liscr.com

Bureau Veritas extends offshore reliability solutions with APSYS partnership

Leading classification society Bureau Veritas has extended the range of reliability solutions it provides for the global offshore industry through a formal partnership with leading aerospace risk management firm APSYS. Under the agreement, APSYS will adapt best aerospace practices and tools to the offshore oil and gas industry and BV will implement APSYS solutions to assist clients in building robust and safe installations while optimising design and operating costs

Matthieu de Tugny, Senior Vice-President and head of Offshore, Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore Division, says, “Everything we do today for our clients in offshore energy has to be focused on reducing costs and operating downtime while improving efficiency and safety. There are many common challenges between deep-sea and space, including reliability, availability and safety issues, operation in a harsh environment, difficulty of access in operation and complex systems with embedded software. Together with APSYS we can deliver solutions proven in the aerospace industry to our offshore clients.”

Christian Forestier, Managing Director of APSYS, says, “The aerospace industry has deployed over the last forty years methodologies and tools to develop Safety, Availability and Operational Reliability, allowing airlines to build profitable business models relying on safe and cost-efficient aircrafts. Our partnership with BV will give us the opportunity to transfer this experience to the Oil and Gas industry that today needs to deploy new solutions to face the challenge of production efficiency”

Services to be provided under the partnership include Reliability and Maintainability Analysis, Risk Assessment and CFD modelling, Production Optimisation and Obsolescence Management, Optimisation of Sub-Sea Architectures, Spare Parts Strategy Optimisation and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis.

Says De Tugny, “By applying these proven disciplines using APSYS and BV tools and experience, our clients will benefit from a substantial reduction in production downtime, a much-reduced planned maintenance impact on production availability and a significant cut in operational expenditure.”

APSYS is established as the corporate centre of excellence for technical risk management of AIRBUS Group. For thirty years APSYS has provided system engineering, reliability and integrated logistic support services to the group. It has developed its own tools and expertise with key programs such as the AIRBUS series of airliners, including the hugely successful A380, or Ariane, the vector for the European Space Program. APSYS has also successfully applied its expertise and techniques to other industrial domains such as transportation, defence, oil and gas and nuclear energy.
www.apsys.eads.net

Bureau Veritas is a world leader in laboratory testing, inspection and certification services. Created in 1828, the Group has more than 66,000 employees in around 1,400 offices and laboratories located all across the globe. Bureau Veritas helps its clients to improve their performance by offering services and innovative solutions in order to ensure that their assets, products, infrastructure and processes meet standards and regulations in terms of quality, health and safety, environmental protection and social responsibility. Bureau Veritas is listed on Euronext Paris and belongs to the Next 20 index.
Compartment A, ISIN code FR 0006174348, stock symbol: BVI.
Corporate website www.bureauveritas.com/marine-and-offshore
Marine client portal www.veristar.com

For more information:
Olivier Benyessaad
Offshore Business Development Manager
Bureau Veritas
+33 (0)1 55 24 72 07
olivier.benyessaad@bureauveritas.com

For more information:
Pierre Secher
Business Development Manager
APSYS
+33 (0)6 18 50 28 86
pierre.secher@apsys.eads.net

London P&I Club maintains financial strength despite impact of large claims

THE London P&I Club’s 2015 Annual Report highlights an unusual run of expensive claims in the 2014/15 policy year, with progress in other areas meaning that the free reserves stand at a healthy $157.4m.

Ian Gooch, chief executive of the club’s management team, says, “During the course of the last policy year, the club was required to respond in respect of fourteen claims in excess of $1m, two of which are expected to exceed the $9m retention level and have accordingly been notified to the International Group Pool. This was an extremely unusual experience; to put it in perspective, there has only been one other policy year in the past ten in which the number of the club’s claims in the band in excess of $1m exceeded eight at expiry.”

Ian Gooch adds, “Notwithstanding the detrimental effect of this intense claims activity, positive developments in a number of areas mitigated the overall impact, which was a small deficit of $3.2m. Churn remains a part of our operating environment, but there was further growth in the club’s premium income along with an increase in the owned and especially the charterers entries from markets including Singapore and Turkey, where we have been working to increase our profile and outreach. The club’s total combined entry is in excess of 50m gt. There was also positive investment performance involving a 5.5 percent return on the club’s invested assets and cash, augmented by a revaluation gain in the value of the London office.”

www.londonpandi.com

Moore Stephens says shipping should not panic in wake of proposed UK non-dom tax changes

Shipowners likely to be affected by wide-ranging changes to the taxation of non-UK-domiciliaries introduced in the UK Summer Budget have been urged not to panic by international accountant and shipping adviser Moore Stephens, which says it will actively participate in the consultation process in the lead-up to planned implementation of the changes on 6 April 2017.

Gill Smith, a tax partner with Moore Stephens, says, “The proposed changes to the taxation of non-doms are short on detail at the moment. A consultation paper on the changes will be published later this year, and the new rules will apply from 6 April, 2017. There is therefore time to plan for the future.

“What we do know, however, is that UK residents will be deemed domiciled for income tax and capital gains tax purposes after 15 years of residence, and will pay tax on their worldwide income and gains. This rule will also apply to inheritance tax. The rules will apply regardless of when someone came to the UK, but the old regime will continue to apply where someone leaves the UK before 6 April, 2017. It will only be possible to break this deemed domicile status by ceasing to be resident in the UK for five tax years.

“This means that the recently introduced £90,000 remittance basis charge (RBC) for residence of more than 17 out of 20 tax years will not apply from 2017/18, as individuals will now be deemed domiciled at that point. The result is that the proposal to elect into the remittance basis for tranches of three years has been scrapped.

“The proposed changes do not appear to affect an individual’s domicile status under general law, so individuals may continue to pass their non-domicile status on to their children, who will then be considered independently in terms of when they reach deemed domiciled status. Further potential good news is that non-doms who set up an offshore trust before they become deemed domiciled in the UK may not be taxed on trust income and gains that are retained in the trust, and the assets will remain outside the scope of inheritance tax (IHT). However this will not apply in the case of UK residential property. This is because the Budget also introduced a change to the IHT treatment of UK residential property owned by opaque non-UK structures, most commonly companies. From 6 April, 2017, UK residential property held indirectly by non-doms, that is property held through offshore companies or other opaque entities by an individual or a trust, will be within the scope of IHT.

“Clearly, these proposed changes could have a significant impact on large numbers of non-doms in the shipping industry. But it is important not to panic. There will be a period of consultation followed by draft legislation, and Moore Stephens will take an active part in that. There is time to plan. The provisions are not introduced until 6 April, 2017.

“Moreover, although it is very early days, some of the proposals in relation to worldwide taxation and offshore trusts appear to be helpful and better than the current rules, and the statutory residence test can allow individuals to spend a reasonable amount of time in the UK whilst knowing with certainty that they are not resident.

“It has been claimed that the proposed changes will generate £1.5billion in tax revenues annually, but it is unclear where the figure of £1.5billion comes from. If the non-doms leave, 45 percent of nothing is still nothing. Moreover, non-doms are likely to leave the UK despite the Chancellor acknowledging the contribution they have made to the economy.

“The UK government has repeatedly shown that it understands the important contribution made by the shipping industry to the UK economy, and there are indeed changes in the Summer Budget which will come as good news to the shipping and offshore sectors. UK corporation tax, for example, will reduce from 20 percent to 19 percent in 2017 and to 18 percent in 2020. The application of the basin-wide investment and cluster area allowances will also be widened in order to support investments on the UK Continental Shelf, and the definition of investment expenditure will be extended to include certain discretionary non-capital spend and long-term leasing of production units.

“For the proposed non-dom tax changes, it is important to use the consultation period to plan and to contribute positively to the process before implementation of the changes on 6 April 2017.”

Moore Stephens LLP is noted for a number of industry specialisations and is widely acknowledged as a leading shipping, offshore maritime and insurance adviser. Moore Stephens LLP is a member firm of Moore Stephens International Limited, one of the world's leading accounting and consulting associations, with 626 offices of independent member firms in 103 countries, employing 26,290 people and generating revenues in 2014 of $2.7 billion. www.moorestephens.co.uk

For more information:
Gill Smith
Moore Stephens LLP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7334 9191
gill.smith@moorestephens.com