BOW WAVE 187

Asia Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 187 23 Jun 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Eastern Direction
3. Seawatch
4. Countertradex Inc
5. Eximin.Net
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Perhaps it is the restlessness of America which explains the place of the truck driver in the popular culture and imagination.

Russ Ringsak is a writer in residence (and truck driver) with Minnesota Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companian's e-zine and writes a regular column full of the world he sees on the road.

A sample from last week's instalment:

"On the way into Mobile you catch a sign for Lambert’s Cafe, "The Only Home of Throwed Rolls", and an invitation to visit America’s Battleship, the USS Alabama. It’s a dramatic downtown and then you are launched out over the water on a long viaduct and you see the great ship and the miraculous blue-green gulf. Back on land you cross the Styx River, not as dramatic as the River Styx but close enough for highway work. Somehow when they were dividing up the coast line Louisiana and Florida managed to short-change Mississippi and Alabama, and you are in Florida before you know it; but still 600 miles from Miami. You cruise through Pensacola and put up in a motel in Marianna, and you have an easy ride of it into Miami on Tuesday."

http://www.prairiehome.org/russ/index.shtml

New Readers this week include:

Gary Jones of brokers Besso
Doychin Boyadjiev of MCL Feeders
Allan Syme, Project Engineer for Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited
Jonathan Beauclair
Toplis and Harding in Dar Es Salaam
Assn of International Freight Forwarders of Ukraine

News of Readers

Earl Imhoff who was with lawyers Coudert Brothers in LA has joined the Great American Insurance Company.

Formerly with INA in Canada, Jerry Giroux and Barbara Heaps have joined forces with Reclaim Consulting, part of the Marsh empire.

http://www.reclaimconsulting.com/

Readers Write:

From Mr Bernard Fallon:

After reading the definition of "insolent" I recalled that the French sailor in Paris who went overboard was declared "insane".

There may be more....

Contact him at:

bvfallonart@yahoo.com

From Mr Peter Glover:

Further to the recent comments from Roger Wormersley (Bow Wave Issue 186), I endorse his ideas for the origins of the word 'Blimp', from what I can remember from my Naval time.

Whilst in the Navy I actually held the position of a "Balloon officer" on HMS VERULAM in 1966/67. The balloons I handled were of the smaller "barrage balloon" type. The balloon carried at radar reflector and was flown on a wire several hundred feet in length to give it reasonable height. The wire was attached to a substantial float, which was towed behind a submarine so that when the submarine submerged it was still marked on the surface. The purpose of this was for doing sonar trials for the Admiralty Under-water Weapons Establishment (AUWE) when doing long range trials, where the sonar results could be compared with the range and bearing from the ship's radar set.

The equipment I was involved in testing was top secret at the time, and I am not sure if it has ever entered service some 35 years later. The trials were carried out at all sorts of exotic locations, often as far away from other shipping as was possible. The inflation and initial flight of the balloons could be hazardous, as it was filled with clear hydrogen, which you may know is highly flammable. We carried substantial quantities of this on deck in bottles and in the tropics had to ensure that the bottles were not exposed to direct sunlight and that water was continuously sprayed over them to keep them cool. Not very comforting to those whose mess decks were immediately below or to those of us who had to work in close proximity of the balloon when it was being inflated.

Contact him at:

Peter.Glover@ctcplc.com

Quite a lot on Asia this week.

Enjoy.

2. Eastern Direction

Your Editor's Quarterpoints column in Lloyd's List revisits the subject of where the container industry is going:-

Marine services in the East will be in the right place at the right time
Sam Ignarski
18-06-2003

For many years in the 1990s, I ran a regional office in Hong Kong for principals in the mutual industry. I arrived as the gathering boom in the Asia Pacific was pushing up rents and costs with each passing month and I left during the year when the "currency crisis" whispered the first intimations to the world that the gorgeous bull market of that decade was going to end. Half the wealth of many individuals vaporised in as little as six weeks. I became very reluctant to own shares.

But during that time, I formed the view that what I thought was a large and dominating industry based in northwestern Europe and the Americas, the second generation of container operators, would be eclipsed in quite a short time by the rising liner industry in the Pacific. This seemed to me then (and now) to pose a real challenge to anyone in the marine services world based predominately in one of the historic maritime centres. This challenge arose out of certain long term post war developments. For ease of reference I can name some of them:

Globalisation and the outsourcing of industrial production. As my colleague Andrew Craig Bennett mentioned in his column last week, more and more of the world's consumer goods are made, vanned and shipped from the Western Pacific in general and China in particular. These goods are carried to market in container ships. The cargo insurers are often based in the country of loading.

The proportion of cargoes loaded into containers is still increasing and in a decade or so will increase from 60% to around 90% of all containerisable goods. This steady changeover from bulk to unit load has been one of the themes of my working life. It has swept up many things. It has rendered historic port cities redundant and centuries of customary practices have atrophied as a result.

The proportion of the liner industry beneficially owned by "Asian" interests quietly passed the halfway mark in the year 2002, according to the analysts.

The shipping industry has many examples which roughly conform to the Pareto Principle. One is that the majority of world goods by value (about 65% when I last measured) is carried by about 15% of world tonnage (container ships) by capacity. For every one container crossing the Atlantic in world trade, seven cross the Pacific.

The tendency of the container industry to consolidate into fewer and fewer entities shows no real sign of abating. Indeed, industries which serve these gigantic lines, such as stevedoring companies, have been obliged to follow something of the same logic, becoming larger and larger and more able to resist the crushing bargaining power of the global liner company. It is this logic which ensured that people working in historic northwest European port cities in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Felixstowe woke up one morning and found they had become parts of global Asian terminal groups.

The natural reaction to all this has varied. Some of the more far-sighted organisations have set up and nurtured organisations which will play their part in the story of the industry during this century. In particular, some of the maritime law firms have been fleet enough to acquire and develop the blend of linguistic, legal and psychological expertise to make the transition. All kinds of intermediaries, living as they do on their wits rather than their wealth, have moved to set up offices in the right cities and time zones. Companies which always saw Asia as their home base have simply grown in ambition and reach. The rise of computer networks has also enabled vast amounts of data and knowledge to be transferred to new locations in the world, especially when the organisations concerned have been managed by people with a real understanding of what it means to think globally and act locally.

Despite the rise of the gargantuan global companies, the Asia Pacific is still largely a world based on the efforts of the small and medium enterprise. A list of the Global 500 companies contains very few
non-Japanese entries. The sense of an entrepreneurial presence is strong in the maritime centres of Asia, even the developed ones. And there is no real
alternative to being close to customers.

Companies in marine services should, of course, look to alternatives to reinventing themselves as service providers to 21st century shipping. They can consider non-marine alternatives, branch out into e-commerce, relaunch their corporate forms or downsize their cost base. They can even look at improving their internal command and controls, but none of this will be half as effective as going East.

3. Seawatch

The June edition of Seawatch, the monthly on-line journal published by the Seasia Network, a group of Insurance and P&I correspondents and edited by Robert Gordon, contains altogether 9 sections dealing with issues in the UAE, news relating to shipping in the region, security concerns in Indonesia, case reports and much else. Although the publication reproduces news and features from the maritime press, it has established a recognisable tone of voice and point of view of its own which is so necessary to lend readworthiness to on-line publications.

The organisation's Rubber Ducky Award which honours those who improve the world’s shipping fleet by removing vessels is awarded to the from it in unusual or stupid ways is given to the bridge officers of the APL Emerald which joined the list of unfortunate ships to run aground on the Horsburgh Lighthouse near Singapore.

http://www.seasia.com.sg/base/newsletter/Seawatch_June2003.pdf

4. Countertradex Inc

Here is something we havn't seen for a while: an announcement of a new on-line exchange, designed to be used in counter- trading, a list of recognisable "members", the promise of software, a mid town Manhattan mailing address, not a scrap of helpful information as to who is behind the venture and a launch date, the fourth of July.Bon Chance.

http://www.countertradex.org/

5. Eximin.Net

We have lately been receiving e-mail news from the Mumbai based publishers of Link, a shipping and trade monthly who also promote a portal relating to the industry in India. Plenty worth reading here about the ports industry in particular and the trade news in general.

http://www.eximin.net/

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to Serena Standing for this one...

While walking down the street one day, a politician is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

"Welcome to Heaven," says St.Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the politician.

"Well, I'd like to but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in Hell and one in Heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven," says the politician.

"I'm sorry but we have our rules." And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to Hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a club and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, hug him, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar.

Also present is the Devil who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on Heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit Heaven."

So 24 hours pass with the politician joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and before he realizes it the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in Hell and another in Heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The politician reflects for a minute, then answers: "Well, I would never have said it, I mean Heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in Hell."

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to Hell.

Now the doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a barren land covered with! waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags.

The Devil comes over to him and grins menacingly. "I don't understand," stammers the politician. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and club and we ate lobster and caviar and danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable."

The Devil looks at him, smiles and says,
"Yesterday we were campaigning. Today you voted for us!"

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 7550 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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