One of Greece’s most famous shipowners has called on the new Rishi Sunak administration in the UK to make London a more attractive place for shipowners.
Nikolas Tsakos, the head of tanker giant Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN), has decided to come onboard as a sponsor of next year’s London International Shipping Week (LISW). In doing so, he had some advice for the British government.
The UK capital is to maritime financial services what Greece is to vessel ownership and operations, and can very easily become the ‘Singapore on Thames’, certainly as far as Europe is concerned, through the strength of its institutions and its insurance, legal and shipbroking expertise, Tsakos said yesterday.
While London is acknowledged as a top centre for global maritime financial and commercial services, the UK government has a great opportunity to look at what is needed to attract back those international shipowners, Greek and otherwise, who have left the UK for other centres such as Monaco and Switzerland, he said.
“London is a still a very important commercial shipping hub, but it needs to work hard to preserve this status. It would be nice to see the UK government use the LISW23 week to announce new incentives to encourage companies to relocate and start investing in London. The benefits associated with growing London’s role as a very important financial and commercial shipping centre are far stronger that any tax receipts that the government might forego,” Tsakos said.
“The benefits associated with growing London’s role as a world leading commercial and financial shipping centre would be an enormous value to the country’s maritime P+L,” he stressed.
