Dear Members of Intercargo, Dear Friends,
A six-year journey of mine has come to its end a few days ago.
On December 31, 2018 my term as Chairman of Intercargo expired having completed 3 times the 2-year term, the maximum provide in our Constitution.
It has been a very interesting and challenging period having enhanced our organization from 767 vessels and 75 full members as of January 1, 2013 to 2,245 vessels and 142 full members as of December 31, 2018.
This performance was achieved by the on-going support and active participation of yourselves, our Secretariat and our Chairmen’s Committee.
I thank all of you heartily as well as Kostas Gkonis our Secretary General, Joe Zhou our Operations Manager, Ed Wroe our Technical Manager and Tonya Dendrinou our Office Manager as well as Nicky Pappadakis and Jay Pillai our Vice Chairmen, and Dimitris Fafalios our Technical Committee Chairman, for their full support and assistance having invested valuable time and effort in this process contributing hugely to the present status of Intercargo.
It has been a very challenging period as the dry bulk shipping had to present its opinions and views at the International Maritime Organization (“IMO”) where new regulations were discussed.
We are proud that our voice was clearly heard at the various fora although it was not always fully adopted.
We all know that although IMO has the full support of Intercargo, together with other shipping organizations, the political considerations seem to have a priority when it comes to voting practical, implementable and achievable regulations.
I am afraid that we have not seen the worse and there are more regulations to be expected.
It is our duty to remain active and alert and challenge regulations which are not achievable and fair not only to the shipping industry but to the society at large. Needless to say that we fully support practical and meaningful regulations.
Therefore, your membership and participation at Intercargo is hugely valuable and we have to keep on asking more quality owners and operators to join it.
We all welcome Dimitris Fafalios as our new Chairman, Spyros Tarassis as our new Vice Chairman and Jay Pillai as re-elected Vice Chairman. We wish them the best and we, all, will fully support them.
Concluding, I thank you again for your support and appreciate your membership of Intercargo.
My very best wishes to yourselves and your families for a very happy, prosperous and productive New Year.
John Platsidakis
January 7th, 2019
