     |
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
          Shipping Stevedoring Port Services Hydrocarbons Diving  Sep-Oct 2008 
       |
|
German pledge to fund merchant marine02 June 2003
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has promised the nation's shipowners more money
German shipowners will enjoy a greater share of the income tax paid by seafarers in an effort to revive the merchant marine, Lloyds List reports. The German Chancelor announced he would double the subsidy from 40% to 80%, at the third national maritime conference in Lübeck. But shipowners would have a two-year "probation period" to see whether the funding delivers more ships under the German flag. The EU allows owners to keep up to 100% of the income tax paid by seafarers in order to keep them competitive. According to figures from the public service union Verdi, which also represents seafarers, 265 German-flagged ships are currently employed in international trades. During the first three months of this year, 66 ships had been flagged out. Horst Rahe, chairman of Deutsche Seereederei said he had already gathered a fleet of about 100 ships, which would return to the German flag immediately under the new arrangement.. And Frank Leonhardt of shipowning company Leonhardt & Blumberg also promised to return about 20 ships of his own fleet to the German flag, should the new tax regime come in place. "Mr Rahe pointed to expert calculations according to which 50 re-flagged ships mean E 10m to E 15m more for the state's coffers, even with 100% tax reduction," Lloyds List reports.
For further information
Public News: You can view MUA's publicly available news in a variety of ways. Please select one of our public news indexes. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
  |
    |
This page: http://mua.org.au/news/shipping/germany.html Site proudly designed and engineered by Social Change Online |
© 2001 Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) |
