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-Like every Friday, we have with us John Faraclas from allaboutshipping.co.uk. We already started
the discussion during the break before the show. Mr Faraclas, good afternoon.
-Good afternoon from rainy London. What can we do, rainy here, sunny there.
-Let Austria lose the pipeline, let you have some rain, as we here we are paying a high price for the sun and laziness.
I see you have turned on your lights.
-Yes, it's dark outside.
-In Europe, it was raining for a month. We have good weather here, but that's about it.
-The atmosphere here has cleared a lot since my student years in the 70's. In Greece, it never clears up no matter
how much it rains. Same for the political atmosphere.
-Let's not get mixed up with politics, let's start from the chartering markets, then we'll comment on politics too.
-The chartering market has gone up 20 points to 1,171, which means 144 points from last week.
This rise was caused by capesize vessels, which gained 343 points. This is very strange, as usually
from the end of May to September, no matter if the overall market is up or down in normal cycles,
it goes down during this period. When people ask about the market, our answer is always that the
market falls in the summer. Here we have a strange situation, for the market to go up in the summer,
even by such small amounts, and about 800 points below the 2,000 points level, where vessels start,with those built in good/beneficial prices, to profit.
-So where do you attribute this uptrend? Is it that it fell too low?
-It fell too low and this will definitely lead to high volatility. You can see that the Panamaxes,
the Baltic Panamax Index, also went up 80 points to 1,007, all indices are stable. But, the problem in shipping
is in wet freight. The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index and the Clean Tanker Index are both low, stable at 577 points
and 555 respectively, meaning a decline of -3 and -9 respectively from last week. So today I would like to present a short
analysis, as everyone talks about cycles. Let's forget this word, many other things are coming into play.
Competitions in a small neighborhood. In Central America, the new Panama Canal is opening next year,
which is also its 100th anniversary. Guatemala wants to build its own canal, Colombia too, with Chinese support.
Turkey wants to build Kanal Istanbul. Many things are changing very quickly.
-Where are Colombia and Guatemala going to build their canals?
-We at allaboutshipping have presented the new canal in Guatemala. Guatemala and Nicaragua were done wrong
by the Americans when the Panama Canal was opened. Now, Panama's propaganda machine is
going out in full force to discredit the other countries that want to build their own.
-I mean geographically, where is it going to be built?
-Colombia will be in the South and Nicaragua/Guatemala on the North. You can read
about all this on our site.
-Why do we need all these canals?
-It's just competition, why do you have a channel and I don't? It's like pipelines, the same strategy.
How many years have you been hearing about the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline? Now we moved on to
TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline).
-Don't say any bad words about TAP, it was the best news we had all week and for the past ten years,
as our prime minister said, let us have this note of joy,
-Let's see what happens. Trade is the biggest problem today. It is currently going through a strange phase.
There are three companies, AP Moller (Maersk), MSC and GMA/CGM, which have 15.1% of the global container capacity.
There are thoughts of a merger. Maybe thoughts to do something else, another player buying one of the three.
I was having a discussion yesterday, imagine if a Greek buys the third of these, which also controls
a large container fleet, at 3.5% of global capacity, or 1.5 million containers. What will happen if Greek
ingenuity leads to purchasing the third biggest company of the world. There are large issues in transportation,
these companies are liner companies. Our companies are *** owners that get into liners too, they are right
to diversify.
-This story has caused some turmoil, as there are some Greeks involved.
-Look, it's a very big problem, shipping will stop because in the way is being financed... Whoever went to Marine Money in
New York would have seen Ross who said that all this swashbuckling with shipping and the banks will come to an end.
The white collar people will show and begin to run their spreadsheets, profit and loss accounts and
such things and they will be very tough with the others. Things are changing. In 2000, I had
pointed out the change in ownership status and all the other things. We must be up to speed, as Greeks,
be united, stop sabotaging the ownership status in Greece, everyone attacking the shipowners
and let's be united, as this is where everything starts and people abroad see this.
The new large field that opens up is Africa. Last night, I was present at the Afrimari (African Marine) event,
where the energy issue was presented. Energy or power? It's a big story. And we see China
investing heavily in Africa and there are many issues there as well.
-How do the Brits see our current issues in Greece.
-Let me wrap up on Africa, it's a large piece that will affect global shipping and commerce. Let me remind you
that in 1960's Geography lessons we learned that it had 265 million people. Today, it exceeds 1 billion.
This has many repercussions, one of course is that half of them have no power, so all the world's energy
companies are pouring in to provide this service. What do Greek companies do? Probably the unions
are telling them not to invest in Africa?
-Like you said, God has put us in the center of Africa, Europe and Asia and we could have done all these things,
but all we have in mind is fighting each other, forming labor unions etc.
-Like the prime minister said, we are at a crossroads for energy. Let's implement a plan. What will happen?
Is anyone going to assassinate the Greek prime minister if he follows a national strategy on power?
Our power too, we must extract our own oil finally. We can be the creators of the energy hub and the big
player in the whole region. I am asking you.
-What do you think about the TAP?
-I am very cautious. I told you earlier that we have been hearing about the Burgas-Alaxandroupolis pipeline
for the last 20 years. Nabucco etc. are done, what's going on? That's why I have been talking about the
importance of a leader. I have Antonis Samaras here, see? He is right next to me here, when he was elected
to be the leader or Nea Dimokratia, the London party committee here gave us a very nice photo that says:
"We support Antonis Samaras as party leader, with the hope that everything in Nea Dimokratia changes
and that we have a new ethos and a better tomorrow."
-Here we have a party conference now...
-So here things are very serious, we in shipping hear to what people abroad are telling us. Yesterday,
most of the people in the event were from the African continent, there were a few Greeks too, but they
all new about Mousouroulis (former minister of shipping) and they were asking why he was changed.
-They could have also asked why we changed our government and many other things.
-They were surprised by the composition of the new Greek government. We as Greeks are not surprised,
as we know that there are past promises that must be met.
-Try to explain to them that Kouvelis wants to be in Europe but without the memorandum, without
doing anything, reducing public servants by 150,000 without firing anyone etc., people will thing you're crazy.
Then Kouvelis left and Venizelos had to step in...
-So now, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis took over as minister of shipping and we believe he will make it.
He has a unique opportunity, as all these years he has been done "wrong" because he was on many
shipping committees but was never given the office of minister of shipping. Recently, he was in the foreign ministry,
responsible for the Greek Diaspora. He had made a good effort and we hope he will make it here as well.
His first statement was a megaton bomb and if he does this he will be remembered, he said that he
will hire more people in the Harbor Corps. We have been talking about this for quite a while, that with
7,500 employees, 12,000 including temporary employees, you can't get anything done, given all
that's been happening in the Aegean. There is no excuse for even one illegal immigrant to enter.
There is no excuse that during this period, since George Papandreou became prime minister,
the Aegean Sea has become a free for all.
-What do they say about Greece, Mr Faraclas? All this story about the funding gap, the clash between
Germany and the US, the change of government in Greece etc.?
-About Greece, they all say that the IMF must be taunted about its big mistake, they are laughing about it.
On the other hand, they are also laughing about the fact that the Greek government is not coming out
and saying "basta!" What's going on here? They are discussing all these things, the size of the
government, and the big problem is that the size of the government in a country like Greece is much
bigger than in the US, a country 20 times as large. There is no legroom in the conference room of the government.
This is a dinosaur system that Mr Samaras chose, to have some many government members. I want to wrap up on shipping...
-I told you, Mr Faraclas, that I have nothing for or against Samaras, but I feel that every time we have
a prime minister, whoever he is, before Samaras it was Papandreou, after him it will be someone else,
we all criticize, it's our job too, but what are we expecting a prime minister to do really?
-I will tell you this. The moment he instituted the position of vice minister of shipping, in a very
important ministry, the country's best ministry, which brings money to Greece and it is how everyone knows us.
George Vernikos's appointment as vice minister was not meant to be. Fine. Was there nobody else?
I don't want to hear from the ministry that we have three secretaries. The shipping ministry does not only
need a vice minister but also a permanent vice minister, as the sea that we face and fight against
in shipping is not green or red or blue. We must have a national shipping policy under any government.
-Here we cannot even fight public sector corruption...
-But, that's exactly it. You either can finish your job or not. People told me yesterday, as Greece is being
followed very closely abroad, like man-to-man defense in basketball, which I love, that we have not been
hearing anything about the Lagarde list, there have been delays or something, everyone is asking when
we will be done with this issue. People aren't waiting for the German elections, it must be done here and now.
We may be in for some big surprises, this is very important.
-I hope they are not bad surpises, Mr Faraclas, because...
-They may be, we must also finish with the outstanding national issues, which in reality are business.
Oil, for example, let's not fool ourselves and everyone else. We cannot ignore the Greek scientists who have
proven the existence of recoverable oil in the Ionian Sea. Let's forget the Aegean so nobody complains,
in the Ionian. Let's extract the oil, so our country can start to profit. He should have also appointed a
vice minister of tourism. The accomplishment of the previous minister of shipping was that was present in
a record number of forums and meetings. It's to Kostis Mousouroulis's credit, as there were complaints
that ministers of shipping have been snubbing such events, it was very important.
-Mr Faraclas, about Greece, has there been an end to Grexit talk, are people concerned, about the IMF
like you said, is there a danger of a summer accident, a clash between Germany and the US and us being
caught in the middle? Are there any such extreme scenarios, or are we continuing with the recovery and
the success story etc.?
-Look, we must be cautious. But if we look at it similar to being a captain in a very bad storm, my skills
and experience will allow me to face the weather and reach the harbor safely. Whatever happens here,
as we have underlined before, Greece is a country that has everything, we are self-sustained.
I will underline again that we have no leadership. Do they want Grexit? Fine, let's do it, we are out.
We have no reason to belong to a group that conspires against us and brought us to the edge of the cliff,
and we also have to face all the national issues wounded and hurt without a powerful initiative for the Greek nation to stand up.
We fight each other, like you said. Eleven million Greeks all want to be prime ministers.
This is important. Can we do it, do we want to? Or do we have the tube babies of Europe controlling the fate of Greece?
Let the members of the Greek government give us an answer. Shipping is a successful business,
a patent if you will, why should people in the world only know about Greek shipping and not other sectors
of the economy that can also bring income and employment? Also, they are able to stop the
humiliating position of pensioners and of our unemployed youth. These are very important things
and they are not just discussion points, the government knows about them too, but what do they do?
-Thank you very much, Mr Faraclas. Unfortunately, we are running out of time, as always these issues never end.
There are many more things we can discuss.
-Thank you very much, have a nice weekend, unfortunately your wish about the Holy Spirit
blessing everyone last weekend was not fulfilled and look at where we are. We wish the best to the new
shipping minister, we should all stand by him and help him turn things around. Thank you very much.
-Thank you very much.