The celebration of Seafarers' Day: New Challenges in Shipping

The celebration of Seafarers' Day, which is traditionally celebrated on the feast of St. Nicholas every year, the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of Republic of Croatia decided to mark this three-day event this year to highlight the importance of maritime affairs as an inevitable branch of the Croatian economy.

That is why, for the first time, a three-day event was organized in Rijeka and Opatija, and on December 6th, along with the traditional acknowledgment of exceptional contributions to individuals and organizations and recalling all unfortunate and missing seafarers, the Conference on Maritime and Inland Navigation was organized to present the vision of development and significance of Croatian maritime and inland navigation.

As part of the Conference, Mr. John Karavanić, Member of the Board of Tankerska Next Generation, participated in a panel discussion entitled "New Challenges in Shipping". In an interesting panel discussion which was moderated by Mr. Tonči Korunić from Interkapital, along with the representative of TNG, the shipowners were represented by Mr. Dragutin Pavletić from Uljanik Plovidba, State Secretary for the Sea Mrs. Maja Markovičić Kostelac represented the government, while the financial industry was represented by Mr. Petar Vlaic (Erste Plavi Pension Fund), Mr. Matej Vida (PBZ) and Mr. Hrvoje Galičić (HBOR).

The panel discussion gave an overview of the many interesting topics such as current and anticipated market trends in shipping, benchmarking analysis of domestic and foreign shipping companies, the competitiveness of ship financing from domestic banks, investments of the pension fund industry into shipping, and the role of government in the development of the shipping industry in Croatia.

Photo: Nikola Kurti