London: China is one of the hottest places for ship finance at the moment, but the nation needs to decide whether it will remain insular or go global with its ship finance ambitions, according to Stathi Marneros, the founder and managing partner of 2009-founded Spartan Partnership, an HR firm for the ship finance sector.
Chinese banks remain focused on Chinese-centric shipping businesses in what is “still not yet a transparent market”, Marneros told our sister site Maritime CEO. Banks in the People’s Republic are very much influenced by central government monetary and lending policies and banks’ market focus is still on supporting credit and loans for newbuildings in Chinese yards and they remain not really active in the second-hand ship market through bilateral loans.
“Asian banks – and respective governments – need to decide what their role will be within the global ship finance arena,” argued Marneros.
“If Asian banks continue to foster an insular ship finance mindset, they will not need outside talent,” he said, adding: “If however, they decide to open up outside of China and hypothetically establish corporate lending hubs across major Western shipping cities in places like London, Athens, Oslo, Hamburg, Rotterdam, then this would represent a clear intention to attract the skills, talent and relationship and credit experience with relevant geographic regions.”
The full article can be read here. [17/12/13]
