By Alastair Marsh (Bloomberg)
Terence Tsai started hearing about the growing labor crisis in shipping in a roundabout way. First, in March, an official at a ship management company in Hong Kong let slip that a captain had purposefully diverted a vessel under its control into the middle of the ocean to protest the treatment of himself and his crew.
Then, from the head of a large Asian shipping company, Tsai heard about a captain who wanted to attend his son’s funeral in Eastern Europe. It took more than two months and a mountain of paperwork to surmount Covid-era port restrictions and travel complications to get him on a flight back home.
By Aaron Clark, Annie Lee and Kevin Varley (Bloomberg)
After loading up with coal the DZ Weihai slipped into the turquoise waters off the coast of Australia this month and began a 14-day voyage to the southern Chinese port of Yangpu. How long the ship waits to discharge its cargo upon arrival is anyone’s guess.
Despite a Chinese ban on coal imports from Australia that’s left about 70 ships, 1,400 seafarers and 6.4 million tons of the fuel in offshore limbo, some vessels continue to make the voyage. While the stranded cargoes and crew are trapped between authorities who won’t let them unload and buyers who won’t let them leave, perhaps most curious of all is what is driving additional shipments.
UNIVERSITY students and regional businesses have joined forces as part of an initiative’s unique problem-solving challenge. The Weave is a Colchester-based scheme which connects students and companies and also provides support for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. It recently orchestrated an event for which six teams of PHD students from universities across the region came together to solve business challenges. The ten-week programme saw them partner with Business Enterprise Agency and tattoo studio Monumental Ink, both in Colchester. Investment management firm Brewin Dolphin also took part in the initiative for which each business set out to explore how they could reach new markets next year.