GERMANY: German container ship manager Reederei NSB today announced its complete withdrawal from the German flag in a major blow to the country's maritime employment.
38 container vessels will be reflagged to other international flag states by 2017 in a bid to cut operating costs and prevent further insolvencies among the one-ship KG companies that own the vessels.
As a consequence, 486 German and European officers and ship mechanics will be made redundant over the coming years. A redundancy scheme was agreed with the company's works council last night, the company said. 179 seafarers will be laid off at short notice.
Given the depressed charter market rates in the container ship sector, NSB's managed fleet cannot afford the extra cost associated with German flag regulations anymore, it said.
Depending on ship size, the additional expenses mainly for wages and social security contributions amount to a few hundred thousand euros per ship per annum. Chief Financial Officer Lutz Weber complained that the government has failed to improve the competitiveness of the German flag through increased financial support in line with the EU state aid guidelines. "Unfortunately, maritime Germany cannot not offer European and German seafarers any perspective anymore," he declared.
Comments
Post a Comment