Despite the dark clouds that hung over the Panamanian ship registry due to the planned tax reform that would have impacted Greek ship owners, who control about 16% of the world merchant fleet, the Panamanian ship registry achieved a 1.5% growth in the number of new ships flagged for the first quarter of this year.

Ships of Greek ownership represent a major market for the Panamanian ship registry, as they are the second most important nation in the Panama Merchant Fleet.

According to Clarkson Research Services Limited, the Panamanian Merchant Marine in 2012 reached the figure of 227.81 million gross registered tons.

The Merchant Marine Department of the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) implemented a cleanup of the fleet to eliminate so-called substandard vessels and lower the average age of vessels. This allowed Panama to improve its image as a serious registry and was reflected by Panama being added to the “white list” of the Paris MOU.

That slight growth of new flaggings is expected to continue during 2013, and for this, the AMP is adjusting strategies according to market conditions.

It should be noted that concerns of maritime lawyers earlier this year was the draft plan to eliminate bearer shares in Panamanian companies, which was promoted by the Executive, but was finally discarded.

According to experts, if this law had been passed it would have had an impact on the registry, since two of the competitors of the Panamanian flag – the Marshall Islands and Liberia – accept bearer share companies.

The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) has recognized that the crisis in Europe has had an impact on the customers from Japan, Greece and China, because it has a side effect, especially in new construction, where there has been a decline for building new ships.

(source The Panama Bullitin)