New BIMCO President Elected

Anastasios Papagiannopoulos, CEO of the Greek shipping company Common Progress, has been elected President of BIMCO, the world’s largest international shipping association, with 2,100 members in more than 120 countries.

News ID: 74411

Date: 11 June 2017 - 10:51

Papagiannopoulos has set three clear themes for his two-year presidential term. The first is to promote digitization across the industry, MANA correspondent reported.

BIMCO will be working on a range of projects using convergent technologies to pursue this objective, including applying new advances in software capability to develop a brand new contract editing tool.

Papagiannopolous said, “BIMCO is focused on driving efficiency, creating better information and increasing simplification, but all of our work to increase digitization across the industry comes with a risk, and in everything – our work on cyber safety and security will remain a top priority, ensuring that our members’ ships are safe, that their seafarers are aware of the dangers and our members’ important information is secure.”

Promoting digitization will be key to achieving the president’s second theme, which is to reduce the administrative burden for the ship’s master. An administrative burden that BIMCO will be working to lift further through the removal of unnecessary regulations which no longer serve a purpose for the safe operation of ships.

The third theme is to encourage the successful implementation and effective enforcement of new stronger environmental regulations – clarifying the obligations and working to ensure regulations are practical and realistic to implement. BIMCO will help shipowners navigate the Ballast Water Management Convention by highlighting the key dates and advising on equipment selection and the operational realities.

BIMCO will also continue to work with other associations and the IMO to help establish a feasible and practical implementation plan to meet the 2020 global cap on sulfur emissions.