Hellas' Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis visited Downing Street yesterday to discuss the global credit crunch with the shipping world beginning to feel the crisis with one large bankruptcy already announced and the potential that London jobs could be at risk.
City Desk The shipping community in London is experiencing a near crisis situation with the collapse of the dry bulk shipping market caused by the global economic slowdown with the news that operator Industrial Carriers Inc filing for bankruptcy which last year had revenues of $1 billion but had liabilities of around $33 million. According to a report in the Journal of Commerce: "During the market's free-fall that began this summer, rates for 150,000-165,000-ton Capesiz ships crashed by 50 percent as of last week to just over $12,000 a day compared with a peak of $233,000 in late May." Speaking to the Journal of Commerce a London shipbroker Clarkson said: “Earnings have fallen off a cliff.” The London shipping community is dominated by the Greek shipping families who as yet have not publicly expressed any undue concerns about the state of the shipping market, and who traditionally have prospered when the price of crude has increased. But as crude oil prices plummet and inflation goes up in the main European and US markets the dry bulk cargo market is shrinking and will affect the bottom lines of these companies.It is estimated that in London alone around 40,000 people are employed directly and indirectly from the Greek shipping families alone who account for around 70 per cent of trade at the Baltic Exchange.The Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis visited Prime Minister Gordon Brown today to discuss the economic crisis.
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