One of the social highlights of Hong Kong Maritime Week takes place tonight at the Four Seasons Hotel with the annual cocktails of The Caravel Group, which this year are also a moment to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the company’s founding by one of the city’s most famous names in shipping and commodities, Harry Banga.
After decades working with Richard Elman at Noble Group, Banga took the plunge in late 2013, founding Caravel as a commodities group, and taking Fleet Management with him from Noble.
Ten years on, Banga, 73, presides over a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that has had to contend with a vastly changed global economy.
“A decade ago, globalisation was a key catchphrase, while today, major economies lean more towards protectionist mindsets,” Banga concedes in an exclusive interview with Maritime CEO, a title he helped to launch as its first cover star back in 2013.
“While we are currently in some of the most turbulent geopolitical times I have seen during my career, vital industries – such as shipping – continue to be essential for facilitating global trade and ensuring food, commodities, medicines and a vast array of other consumer products reach their end users and consumers,” Banga says.
Today, Banga and his workforce have many more data points and inputs to be able to more accurately gauge outlooks – and despite the significant geopolitical uncertainty, he claims to see continued drivers for economic growth and demand for commodities in the year ahead, a year where Fleet, his shipmanagement arm headed by long-term colleague and friend Kishore Rajvanshy, will turn 30.
Another highlight of any maritime week in this southern Chinese city is the annual cocktails of the local shipowner association, something very special for Banga this year in particular as Wednesday saw his son, Angad, elected as the new chairman of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association (HKSOA).
Banga is adamant that the Special Administrative Region still has a strong future as a maritime hub.
“Hong Kong continues to be a super connector in Asia and this is unlikely to change,” he says. “Shipping is vital to global trade and I can’t see any situation where this would begin to drop off. With this in mind, I expect Hong Kong’s maritime hub to continue to build upon its strengths, offerings and standing in the global industry.”
Banga has been in shipping a very long time – he earned his Master Mariner certification in 1976 and was commanding merchant vessels by the age of 27. While admitting his industry is undergoing enormous transformations, he is unfazed at the challenge ahead.
“In the broader maritime industry, you need to have an appetite for working within the realm of uncertainty and considered risk,” he says, expressing particular interest in ways in which to prepare seafarers for the future.
Hong Kong Maritime Week concludes tomorrow.
