Communiqué

Maritime Days in Odessa 2012

Press release

Maritime Days in Odessa 2012 is a great event in the South of Ukraine (Black Sea Region) intended for shipbrokers, shipowners, forwarders, agents, cargo owners and other parties to the transport sector.

Maritime Days in Ukraine were held from 31 May up to 2 June 2012 in Odessa. A marvelous welcome Party for the participants of Maritime Days was held on the 31^st of May under the support of TransInvestService. The annual international conference Practice of Maritime Business: Project Cargo Black Sea 2012 gathered more than 100 delegates from 14 countries of the world in the Bristol Hotel on the 1^st of June. On same day the participants of the conference and a lot of other players of the transport market amounting to 200 people visited the Ukrainian Shipbroker’s Club Annual Dinner. The football tournament Odessa Shipping Cup was the final event within Maritime Days held on the 2nd of June.

It is worth mentioning that Maritime Days in Odessa has a long history, but this time it has acquired some new scope. The conference ‘Practice of Maritime Business: Sharing Experience’ was held in Odessa since 2005. Having gathered the pace this event has turned into the largest specialized business forum named Maritime Days in Odessa.

Arthur Nitsevych, Managing Partner of Interlegal, stated that the programme of the event has been developed primarily for the exchange of experience on the current situation at the heavy lift market in the Black Sea region:

‘… Big projects such as Euro-2012 and the Olympic Games in Sochi, exploitation of the Shimanovsky deposit by Black Iron and Eristovsky deposit by FerrExpo etc. are being implemented in our region. And it is closely connected with transportation of a great number of heavy lift cargo and construction materials. That is why we have chosen such a topic to attract the new business audience to our country…’

The organizers of the joint event Maritime Days in Odessa 2012 were the leading forwarding companies Nortrop Ltd and Dealex Transport, Ukraine, and Interlegal.

Financial Partner of Maritime Days in Odessa became ABLV Bank (Latvia), the General Partner was Varamar Ltd and the Strategic Partner was Novorossiysk Port Terminal. Maritime Days were also financed and supported by TransInvestService and such insurance companies as Groupama Transport (France), Soglassye (Russia) and Remedy law firm (Russia). The peculiarity of the conference was an expo zone where the guests presented their expositions.

The conference was opened by the First Deputy Head of Odessa Commercial Sea Port Mikhail Sokolov as this port is one of the main representatives of Ukraine at the big market of sea cargo carriages. He highlighted the numerous projects of the port, in particular, construction of the quarantine pier with the investments of about 500 mln US dollars, construction of a grain handling terminal, development of Odessa port and some other ports.

Port successfully manages to handle heavy lift cargo and is specialized in production of the facilities required for transportation of similar cargo.

TransInvestService shared its experience on service of such cargo. Gennadiy Lupu, vice general director, gave an example of the windpower plant in Nikolayev Region.

Sarens Ukraine is specialized in the same carriages. The speech of the Head of Sarens, Vitalii Poltava, was Lifting of Out-of-Gauge and Heavy Lift Cargo as an Element of Transportation for Wind and Energy Projects. ‘Cargo handling gear is an integral part of transportation in any project that is why we participate in this conference’.

Ron Levin, Business Development Manager, APM Terminal BV (the Netherlands) is a representative of APM Terminals being a part of APM Maersk as one of the largest logistics companies of the world. Ron Levin declared in its speech that the company is interested in investments at the markets with big growth potential and the aim of the company is to introduce the parties of the market to APM Terminals and examine possibilities for search of new partnership ties in the Black Sea region. And as the basic activity of the company is port terminals, accordingly, the company will search for strategic partners among the Ukrainian representatives of the Black Sea market.

The main idea of Maritime Days in Odessa 2012 is to hold a number of events within several days with a totally different format, namely, conference, business dinner and football tournament. The time when the experts of maritime transport are united has come, say organizers of the events.

When the speeches are pronounced from the tribune on the necessity to unite the efforts to achieve the common goals, Odessa has become an international center for maritime transport business. The businesslike atmosphere of the event proves that the delegates are highly interested in a worthy representation of their companies to find some new ways for the business development.

Andrey Varvarenko, General Manager of Nortrop, Odessa Ltd, considers that Maritime Days held on the professional level will facilitate without questions to develop foreign economic activities of Ukraine and its international integration.

This statement was supported by all organizers and participants of the event. There are experts in our country who know the international traditions and business rules.

The above stated was supported by Sergey Nazarenko, Dealex Transport, Ukraine. He highlighted that the heavy lift market becomes more and more structured and new companies rapidly appear looking forward to exchange of information. Each carriage of heavy lift cargo is complicated and unique and the participants of such carriages are willing to share their experience, to hear the colleagues, partners and friends.

Mehmet Sitki Dogu, General Director of Dogu Law Office (Turkey) stated that ‘The Black Sea unites the countries situated around the sea and each meeting with the colleagues is only some new experience, exchange of new information on professional issues and it is a great value of Maritime Days in Odessa.

One of the peculiarities of the conference became an interactive workshop organized within the conference at the second session. The moderators of the discussion were Artem Skorobogatov, Associate Partner of Interlegal; Natalia Myroshnychenko, Senior Lawyer of Interlegal; George Zambartas, Head of Zambartas Law Offices and Andrey Shashorin, Head of Moscow Representative Office of Remedy law firm. Interactive panel discussion was dedicated to consideration of a number of practical cases related to out-of gauge cargo transportation and handling. The panelists were Andrii Kuzmenko (Director of TransInvestService container terminal) representing the terminal sector, Aleksandrs Abuzjarovs (Groupama Transport) representing insurers, Sergey Derevyankin (Soglassye Insurance Company) representing insurers, Andrey Varvarenko (Nortrop, Odessa Ltd), Oksana Popova (Dealex Transport, Ukraine) as well as Anna Feldman (Ukrrichflot) and Boris Khrebtov (Maxmarine) representing forwarders.

In the evening the guests of the conference and members of the Ukrainian Shipbroker’s Club Annual Dinner went to Otrada Club to celebrate the 2d anniversary of the Ukrainian Shipbroker’s Club.

Next day on the 2nd of June the long expected football tournament Odessa Shipping Cup 2012 was held. 4 teams participated in the tournament: Varamar, Nortrop, TransInvestService and BaltChernomorets. The winner of the tournament became TransInvestService.

The football tournament Odessa Shipping Cup 2012 was held thanks to Groupama Transport, France.

The organizers would like to thank all sponsors and partners as well as informational and media partners of Maritime Days whose support made it possible to organize these events. The organizers also express their gratitude to the General Informational Partner Transport journal and official informational partner Ports of Ukraine.

We also thank for the support the ICC Ukraine, Odessa Commercial Port and Nautical Institute of Ukraine.

The friendly atmosphere, sea breeze and hospitality of the organizers definitely guarantee that Maritime Days 2013 will be held next year in Odessa. And shipbrokers, shipowners, forwarders, agents, cargo owners and banks will come here to share their experience accumulated for the year and to prove again that Ukraine is a Naval Power.

4 June 2012

Press Center

Interlegal