International shipping association Bimco is about to open an office in Greece that will be tasked with enhancing service to local clients and help recruit new ones.
It will be Bimco’s third office outside its Copenhagen headquarters, alongside existing ones in Shanghai and Singapore.
Greeks are the single biggest group of shipowners within Bimco, accounting for 152 out of the about 800 ship proprietors that have joined the organisation. Bimco says there is ample scope to increase that tally, considering that about 600 Greeks in total own ships.
“The potential is huge,” Bimco president Anastasios Papagiannopoulos told reporters in a media presentation in Athens on Wednesday.
Bimco plans to open the office early this summer. It expects to hire a manager and find suitable space within a matter of weeks.
The office will be a one-person operation, entirely dedicated to service existing clients and get new members to join. “It will not focus on policy formulation – that will remain the role of the staff at headquarters in Copenhagen,” said Papagiannopoulos.
The Athens move will not divert Bimco from its other main goal to deepen and expand its presence in Asia, added Papagiannopoulos, who is also principal of Athens-based dry bulk carrier company Common Progress.
“Euro-centric organisations will not have the potential to intervene in what’s happening in shipping,” added Papagiannopoulos, whose two-year term at the helm of Bimco expires on 13 May, when he hands over the reins to Sadan Kaptanoglu, managing director of Istanbul-based Kaptanoglu Shipping.
To stress its Asian drive, Bimco is looking for an owner from Hong Kong or China to become president after Kaptanoglu, Papagiannopoulos revealed.
Bimco currently has 1,900 members from all across shipping, making it the industry’s biggest international association.
