Manila: The supply and demand imbalance for officers remains a major concern for the shipping industry, says the president of InterManager, the association of leading international shipmanagers. Gerardo Borromeo, who is the ceo of Philippine Transmarine Carriers, tells Maritime CEO, “The inherent disparity between an almost 14-year timeline needed for the development of global maritime professionals – from first year college cadetship to the attainment of a Master’s license, as against the 12 to 15-month time frame to build vessels today, will continue to provide the biggest challenge to managing the supply and demand gap.”
As a result, while wage inflation has been tame over the past few years, a rapid return to normalcy in the shipping industry could easily cause a repeat of the wage situation of a few years ago, the Filipino national maintains.
“There is a critical need to continue to invest in the long-term development of future officers in order to try and mitigate such unfavorable circumstances,” he stresses.
Philippine Transmarine Carriers (PTC), founded 34 years ago, is responsible for an annual deployment of 36,000 Filipinos on 700 vessels globally.
Now PTC is starting to expand across Asia, taking its crew management formula to Indonesia as well as embarking on technical management, ship agency and allied maritime services in Singapore. [13/08/13]
