20 September 2016 12:00 am
Making great inroads into the marine industry, Mercmarine in 2012 entered into a joint venture agreement with Reederei NSB, creating a platform to provide crew management services for the NSB owned vessels, the company was registered and known as NSB Mercmarine.
Reederei NSB is one of the largest Ship Management companies in the world operating in 6 countries, with its futuristic expansion plans evolving mainly around Asia. Given Sri Lanka’s geographical advantage, the expertise of its seafarers and management teams they decided to include Sri Lanka as the key focus area of their diverse plans.
In Mercmarine Crew Management headed by Capt Rohan Codipilly ,Reederei NSB found a world class and committed partner to carry on their vision. The Joint venture passed significant landmarks within a short time span giving opportunities to many Sri Lankan seafarers who were well experienced. Their robust deck & engine cadetship program coupled with rating training programs marked their commitment to training and development of Sri Lankan seafarers.
In keeping with the rapidly changing world dynamics in technology,newIMO standards, risks, management etc. the shipping industry needed to change and adopt to the ever evolving markets. This week as part of their adoption process and expansion program to meet these challenges, the two entities announced a rebranding of their joint venture corporate identity to ‘Asia Marine Colombo’. With this change, the joint venture in Sri Lanka amalgamates into the Asia Marine cluster.
Thomas Kriwat CEO Mercmarine Group Of Companies. Speaking at the revealing of the logo, to a group of Deck Officers and Marine Engineers assembled for the 3rdconsecutive “NSB Officer’s Conference”, the shippingindustry was almost 20 years behind and needed to change to keep abreast with the global demand for change and it was their obligation to ensure that their deck & engine officers were well trained and highly conversant with the emerging trends.
Tim Ponath - COO of Reederei NSB speaking at the programmesaid “ for a company with German roots we are exploring Asia as this is where we see real potential. The re branding is part of a long term strategy to make our presence known in providing career and training opportunities to the seafarers locally with a global outlook and background. The launch is a third in the series of country specific launches the others being Asia Marine China and Asia Marine Philippines”.