The 8th edition of the Annual Shipping Career Summit organised by Ships and Ports Communication Company Limited has been scheduled to hold at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) in Effurun, Delta State on Thursday 21st August, 2014.
The Annual Shipping Career Summit was created to enlighten Nigerians on the various career and investment opportunities that abound in the nation’s maritime sector.
The Summit will also empower participants especially youths, to take advantage of such opportunities through mentoring.
Coordinator of the Summit, Eucharia Okoli said that Nigerians should ordinarily not have any business with poverty or unemployment, considering the country’s vast resources, especially her enormous maritime potentials.
“The maritime sector is where every attention should now be focused. Those who rule the seas rule the world. If we truly desire to become one of the top 20 economies of the world by 2020, we must pay closer attention to our maritime sector.
“Nigeria’s maritime sector is endowed with enormous natural resources, which provide great potentials and opportunities necessary to achieve sustainable growth and development. Our country is blessed with a vast coastline of about 850 kilometres and an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of well over 300,000 square kilometres.
“The country also has navigable inland waterways of 3,000 kilometres, eight major seaports, 11 oil terminals, and over 170 private jetties, as well as six major Inland Container Depots (ICDs), and two Inland Freight Stations,” she said.
Giving an insight into the genesis of the Summit, Okoli said that its maiden edition was held at the MUSON Centre at Onikan, Lagos, in July 2006 while the second edition in July 2007, third edition held in July 2008 and the fourth edition in June 2009 where held in Abuja, Ibadan and Ilorin respectively.
She said the Summit has also been hosted in Abeokuta, Yenagoa and Makurdi in 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively.
She said Warri was chosen for this year’s event “because of its large population of youths and because it is a natural maritime domain with ports in Warri, Koko and Burutu; a maritime university; several maritime training institutions; the NIMASA shipyard and several shipping operations domiciled in the state.”
Resource persons at the seminar include former President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM), Captain Adewale Ishola; Honorary Secretary, Institute of Marine Engineering Science, and Technology (IMarEST), Engineer Alex Peters; and President of Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA) Nigeria, Mrs. Jean Chiazor-Anishere.
Other speakers at the one-day event include the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Shippers’ Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello and Director General of NIMASA, Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi.
Career and investment opportunities to discuss at the summit, according to Akinola, include Investment /Business opportunities in the Maritime Industry, Opportunities in non-oil export, Ship Chandling, Engineering Career at Sea and Building a Career in Seafaring.
Ships & Ports, popularly called the voice of the maritime industry, is the production stable of the popular daily maritime radio programme on Radio Nigeria One 103.5FM Lagos. The company also published the Ships & Ports Free Daily newspaper and organises the Annual Maritime Football Competition and the Annual Ships & Ports Essay Competition
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