Income was also up 11% compared with the same period of 2017, according to the Ship Management Survey by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC).

Ship management revenue in the first six months of 2018 recorded the fifth consecutive increase starting from H1 2016, while its contribution to Cyprus’ GDP remained steady at 5%. Cyprus has one of the world’s largest ship management hubs centred in Limassol.

On the global shipping industry’s prospects, the CBC points out that shipping is currently in a transitional state following a series of consolidations, corporate restructures and state funding schemes in key maritime markets.

The container and dry bulk shipping markets are currently going through a period of stagnation due to increasing fuel prices, a weakening of global trading conditions and the uncertainty surrounding the US-China trade negotiations.

On the upside, conditions are improving in the ship building market, as new orders are being placed in key ship building industries, and the over-capacity observed during the previous years is gradually being reduced, the CBC said.

In H2 2018 revenue from ships under the Cypriot flag tripled, amounting to 33% of the total ship management revenue compared with 10% in the first half of the year and 6% in the second half of 2017.

The share of ship management revenue from ships under other registries declined to 67% of total ship management revenue from 90% in the first half of 2018.

Germany remains the industry’s biggest market with its share accelerating to 44%, marking a reduction of 3 percentage points compared with H1 2018, followed by Switzerland with 8% from 6% in H1 2018.

Ship management revenue from Greece amounted to 6%, while revenue from Singapore climbed to 6% of the sector’s total revenue from 4% in H1 2018.

The sectors expenditure in the second half of 2018 declined by €19 million to €416 million.

The majority of ship management spending (64%) concerned crew expenses (seafarers wages and training), while 20% of total spending was distributed to administration expenses and the remaining 16% in ship management expenses.

The main exporting destinations for the services of the ship management industry include Germany, Switzerland, Singapore and Malta. These services concern primarily technical (mechanical) ship operations and crew management services.

Source: Financial Mirror