Shipping Industry in the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Shipping Industry in the UK - Essay Example Ninety-five per cent of Britain's external trade by weight, (77% by value) moves by water. "The World Bank estimates that seaborne trade in Britain will increase by 4% a year over the next decade, yet UK ship ownership and registration have fallen substantially over the past 30 years and there seems to be a maritime staff crisis, with a decline in the number of qualified seafarers". http://www.kmcinternational.com/about_us/sector_profile.cfmid=14 The numbers of the UK seafarers are declining at a rate which is not only hazardous to the shipping industry itself, but this in turn will also affect the many other industries which employ the trained seafarers when they come ashore. There are about 17,000 such jobs available, these jobs range from surveying to shipbuilding and from marine equipment services to insurance - for many of these jobs the experience which seafarers have is essential. The moribund sea industry would leave the maritime related economy faltering. Recently, the British government has issued new taxation laws and these laws will not only indefinitely affect the shipping businesses in the UK but also the shipping mercantile which do business with Britain. Trade and shipping have been interconnected through the ages. Initially there was a 25% capital allowance and ... It is obvious that those tax- breaks were not cost-effective. In the July of 2000, the tonnage tax was introduced into the British shipping industry. Instead of charging ships to be taxed by the profits they made, ships started to be charged by their tonnage. It was of the collective opinion that this taxation was gravely needed by this particular industry to reverse the downward trend it was facing for the past 25 years. There were many suggestions to overturn this development but none actually came through. Then the head of Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions is a former seafarer by the name of John Prescott, who founded the Shipping Working Group. This group was supposed to help design a taxation policy in accordance with employers and unions - the Chamber with officers and ratings and the Government. They started working together on the campaign to reverse the decline and when everyone joined forces they managed to achieve speedy progress. In the March of 1998 the group reported to the Secretary of State and in December of 1998 John Prescott introduced what is known as "British Shipping: - charting a new course". http://www.british-shipping.org/british/delivering.htm The problem with the White Paper however was that there was no mention and no didn't have any solutions to the financial and economical problems of the British shipping industry - the industry couldn't compete with other nations, such as Norway, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, who already had such policies in place. It merely suggested that the tonnage based tax system be reviewed. It was up to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to step up and solve the dilemma. In the March of 1999, in