The Maritime Industry
The maritime industry plays a very significant role in the socio-economic development of any country. Landlocked countries greatly depend on countries with ports and harbour facilities to either import and export their goods.
This means that countries with good maritime facilities stand the chance to rake in additional revenue by serving landlocked countries.
However, that is not the case for Ghana as the country has failed to take advantage of its two ports and harbours in Tema and Takoradi to serve the needs of neighbouring landlocked countries within the West African Sub Region.
Singapore without any natural resources expect the sea has taken advantage of its position in East Asia to develop its maritime industry to its full advantage.
In broadest terms, maritime industry includes all enterprises engaged in the business of designing, constructing, manufacturing, acquiring, operating, supplying, repairing and/or maintaining vessels, or component parts thereof.
It also includes managing and/or operating shipping lines, stevedoring arresters and customs brokerage services, shipyards, dry docks, marine railways, marine repair shops, shipping and freight forwarding services and similar enterprises.
This means that the industry is very wide and can has the capacity to generate a lot of direct and indirect jobs.
In November 2009, IHS Global Insight, a recognised global leader in economic and financial analysis and forecasting, completed an evaluation of the economic contribution of one aspect of the maritime industry - the liner shipping industry - using 2007 as a base year. Key findings include annual economic contribution of US$ 183.3 billion, creation of 4.2 million jobs, US$ 27.2 billion in the form of compensation to those employees, direct capital expenditure of US29.4 billion
Not only that the liner shipping industry has spent over US$ 236 billion in more than a dozen countries on the purchase of new vessels. In mid-2008, there were more than 17.8 million containers in the world fleet, which cost the industry US$ 80.1 billion to purchase. Liner shipping companies deployed more than 400 services providing regularly scheduled service, usually weekly, connecting all countries of the world.
Using Singapore alone as a case in point, the industry to a large extent is an important part of the Singapore economy contributing approximately seven per cent of Singapore’s GDP and employing over 96,000 people. The cluster comprises more than 5,000 maritime establishments in the following sectors: (a) Shipping and Port related sectors; (b) Offshore, Shipbuilding and Repair; and (c) Maritime Services such as shipping finance, marine insurance and maritime legal and arbitration services.
Today, the port of Singapore remains the world’s busiest in terms of shipping tonnage and container throughput. According to The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore in 2006, total vessel arrivals in terms of shipping tonnage stood at 1.4 billion gross tonnes (GTs) and container throughput was a record 27.9 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). In the same year, Singapore sold 31.5 million tonnes of bunkers and remains the top bunkering port in the world in terms of bunker sales.
According to the “Review of Maritime Transport, 2007”, a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Singapore is the 10th most important maritime country. The Singapore Registry of Ships (SRS) has also continued to grow and the Singapore flag is carried in excess of 39 million GT in 2007.
The growth in the number of major shipping companies establishing operating bases in Singapore has been encouraging. Major reputable international shipping groups from leading maritime countries have made Singapore their shipping hub for Asia.
OFFSHORE, SHIPBUILDING AND REPAIR
The offshore and marine engineering (OME) sector has also undergone tremendous transformation over the past 40 years in Singapore. Today, with 70 per cent of the global market share of Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessel conversion, 70 per cent of world market share for jack-up rig building and 20 per cent of world market share for ship repair, Singapore boasts a comprehensive offering of repair services, conversions and new constructions for an international clientele.
The growth in Singapore's shorebased maritime services, critical in supporting the expansion of the pool of shipping companies, has been evident in various sectors such as shipping finance and marine insurance.
A plethora of shipping finance-related companies has established offices in Singapore. These include banks, boutique shipping investment banks, private equity arrangers, shipping finance advisers, shipping finance conference organizers and publishers of maritime finance transactional information.
In the marine insurance market, Singapore has witnessed good growth between 2006 and 2007 in the number of Lloyd’s Syndicates in Singapore that undertake marine insurance. The launch of the SGX AsiaClear, the first clearing facility for freight and energy derivatives in Asia, in May 2006 has created opportunities for Singapore to leverage on her position as a key hub port for oil and maritime commerce to serve the Asian energy and Forward Freight Agreements (FFA) market.
In Ghana building an inland port facilities at Boankra in the Ashanti Region to help boost trade to the northern sector of the country has been a challenge to the Ghana Shippers Authority and the government. This project has been on the drawing board for more than 20 years.
The project when it comes to fruition is likely to - ease congestion at the ports of Tema and Takoradim create job opportunities for the people in and around Boankra, reduce the aggregate transport cost of international cargo to importers and exporters from the middle and northern parts of Ghana, facilitate the use of Ghana’s Transit Trade Corridor by the landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and promote the establishment of export processing zones in the vicinity of the inland port, enhance and facilitate customs examination, duty payment and cargo clearance.
But the issue is that can Ghana take advantage of the opportunities that abound in the maritime industry? This is another food for thought.