SHIPPING

Ceyline Shipping partners Oldendorff

To employ Sri Lankan seafarers:

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

The shipping industry manpower training needs are met by a number of companies and they provide experience for local seafarers to secure jobs in foreign vessels.

Reederi Nord Klaus E. Oldendorff Limited is a company that provides training to Sri Lankans on a regular basis.

The company continues to employ Sri Lankan officers, cadets and ratings for the past 18 years with a regular annual intake. While contributing to training of young Sri Lankans to become officers the company also reap the benefits of investment in training by developing a pool of in-house trained senior officers, Ceyline Shipping Ltd Managing Director Capt. Nalin Peiris told Daily News Business.

Some of the trained officers are sailing as Masters and Chief Engineers and they proudly uphold the tradition of this company which is a family owned leading and reputed German company. This company also has largely contributed towards developing a pool of Sri Lankan ratings some of whom were inducted as trainees.

“It is not the norm for foreign ship owning companies to employ trainee ratings. Therefore we are quite fortunate to have this company as one of our principles who actively contribute in developing young blood,” he said. Most of the company’s vessels are under Cyprus or German flags. They consist of container ships, bulk carriers and tankers with varying TEU capacities. Sri Lankans are employed in all types of vessels. Ceyline Shipping has consistently provided quality officers and ratings. The relationship was built on a strong foundation. We represent the company as owner’s agents attending to its ships which call at the Sri Lankan Ports,” he said.

Reedeneri-Nord Klaus E. Oldendorff Limited Managing Director Peter Rybarczyk said the company is renting out its ships and is a ‘rent-a-ship’ company.

“We rent out ship with our own crew. We have two companies, in Cyprus and Hamburg Germany. The Cyprus company which is the crew office handles tankers and the Germany company handles bulk carriers and containers,” he said.

The company has 36 ships and eight ships are on contract basis. The business is growing steadily and we are relatively unaffected by the recent shipping crisis. Now the situation is almost back to normal and we have resume ordering ships, he said.

“We have international crew on our ships, majority of officers and engineers are from Sri Lanka including Masters and Chief Engineers. This is because Sri Lanka provides quality education and loyalty and high retention rate are plus points,” he said.

The founder and owner of the company late Klaus E. Oldendorff came to Sri Lanka in his own sail boat. He sponsored the school Naval Academy and supported it. We follow what he started. We will continue the program of recruiting enhance it in keeping with the growth of the company, he said.

TNT sponsors NCESL AGM

TNT, one of the world’s largest air express delivery companies and the market leader in Europe sponsored the recent Annual General Meeting of the National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka (NCESL) which was held recently at the Taj Samudra hotel. The National Chamber of Exporters consists of a large number of companies from numerous industries and services related to exports in the country.

TNT provides businesses and consumers worldwide with an extensive range of services for their express delivery needs, be it export or import. Headquartered in the Netherlands, TNT offers efficient network infrastructures in Europe and Asia and is expanding operations worldwide to maximize its network performance. TNT serves more than 200 countries, employs over 150,000 people and operates over 40 aircraft and 26,000 ground vehicles.

TNT recognizes its social responsibility and has formed partnerships with the United Nations World Food Program and the United Nations Environment Program to fight hunger and pollution in the world. TNT also provided vital logistical support worldwide during the disastrous tsunami of 2004.

In Sri Lanka, TNT is represented by Ace International Express, a member of the Aitken Spence group of companies.