On June 28, a seminar for planning establishment of ship financing institution was held in the Busan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (Busan CCI), jointly led by Busan CCI, Korea Maritime University (KMU) and Korea Association Marine Industry.
The seminar was conducted in order to diagnose the current state of shipping and shipbuilding industries and discuss the necessity of a new ship financing institution which would contribute to continued growth of the two industries. Moreover, in-depth discussions were going on about the contribution of its foundation would make for Busan to grow into the center of ship financing.
The seminar had two parts, Part 1 for presentation followed by Part 2 for comprehensive discussions after a welcoming speech of KMU President Park Han-Il, a congratulatory message of Kim Moo-Sung, member of the National Assembly, words of encouragement of Cho Sung-Je, President of Busan CCI.
At Part 1 of the seminar, Yang Jong-Seo, a senior researcher at the Export-Import Bank of Korea, proceeded a presentation of ‘The current state of shipping and shipbuilding industries and ship financing support trend’ and Lee Ki-Hwan, professor of KMU, presented under a subject of ‘The current state of planning establishment of ship financing institution and problems’ while Park Jin-Seok from Busan Metropolitan City presented ‘Promoting Busan as the center of financing and development plan for ship financing’.
Yang Jong-Seo said that shipping and shipbuilding industries are having continuous recession and mentioned that although orders for commercial vessels are gradually growing little by little, this has been caused by a rise in shale-gas and oil demands and competition of securing high efficiency vessels.
Yang said that recovery of commercial vessel ordering will pick up in 2015 and expected that domestic shipping companies are urgently needed to overcome liquidity crisis and invest in high-efficient newbuildings.
In addition, he commented that global ship financing is greatly scaled down after 2008 global financial crisis, however pointed out the fact that Asian banks are expanding. For continuous development of domestic shipbuilding and shipping industries, expanding ship financing support is essential, he said.
Source: www.asiasis.com
