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Baltic Sea – a sea of opportunity
In the 1990’s, the Baltic Sea was called the Sea of Peace in a political storm against the communist rule. Now peace has been established, turning the Baltic Sea into a sea of opportunity. Growing wealth and prosperity in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the former East Germany has given the shipping industry a boost in the area – on several fronts.

Over the past decade, shipyards in the Baltic states have taken over most of the repair jobs from Western shipyards. Even the job of building the ships has been taken over by our fellow citizens in this area. And at the time of writing this, most of the shipyards from Swinoujscie/Szczecin to St Petersburg and upriver are fully booked until the mid-2008. This results in a chain of benefits: The local people earn money, which gives them purchasing power for shopping. Shopping means commodities in the shops. Selling goods in shops means that a new supply has to be sailed in from overseas.

This has given a boost to container traffic, such as that supplied by the Danish carrier Unifeeder, the largest independent feeder operator in Europe. In fact, only some operators in the Far East are bigger than Unifeeder on a worldwide basis, and they are not the only operators in the area. Estonian Teco Lines, Team Lines, MSC and others are operating in a market which is estimated to double in the next decade.

A doubling of container trade into the Baltic area will require some serious investments in terminals and other port facilities in the coming years, which again will continue the chain of benefits in terms of more jobs, more earnings and more prosperity.

The seaborne traffic has been struggling to compete with road traffic on several fronts in the Baltic area. Scandlines gave up on the Klaipeda–Kiel route, as it could not compete with cheap lorry transports.

Other routes in the Baltic area are running with great success, such as the seaborne motorway from Lübeck/Travemünde to Hanko, which carries a huge amount of goods on rubber wheels.

All in all this is a success story, but there are dark clouds on the horizon.
Danish shipping has proven its success over the last couple of years, witnessed by the large number of ships, high earnings, good prospects and an order book as big as the existing fleet. But there are problems in the future: Where to find the crews to sail all these ships? The demand for seafarers, especially for senior positions is high. It can thus be difficult to find qualified captains, mates, and chief engineers, engineers, AB and cooks. If the companies have to search for personnel in odd corners of the world, these people have to be trained to maintain the high quality of performance which is the trademark of all Danish shipping companies.

Consequently, a huge effort will be needed in order to recruit sailors for the future. Still, it will be Far Eastern nationals taking up the lower positions on board, but all officers’ positions cannot be filled with Danes or other European nationalities either. But which nationality will take these positions is uncertain, as there are no reserves anywhere in the world.

//Bent Mikkelsen