Coastal shipping rebound offers a bright future 

Sup­ply chain prob­lems will soon be relieved by the rap­id scal­ing up of New Zealand’s coastal ship­ping cap­ab­il­ity.

Paci­fica Ship­ping has announced it will intro­duce a new con­tain­er ship to the New Zea­l­and coast to com­ple­ment its exist­ing ves­sel, MV Moana Chief.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says in the space of a few months, the coastal ship­ping industry has seen an unpre­ced­en­ted turn­around.

“A large part of the cred­it has to go to the Gov­ern­ment and Min­is­ter of Trans­port Michael Wood who has pushed a pro­act­ive and pos­it­ive trans­port policy to get coastal ship­ping back in the game after dec­ades of neg­lect and poor policy.”

He says the recent announce­ment of Gov­ern­ment fund­ing sup­port to four oper­at­ors to intro­duce new coastal ship­ping ser­vices, includ­ing Paci­fica, has been instru­ment­al in kick­start­ing the sec­tor.

In addi­tion to the four oper­at­ors who received fund­ing sup­port, glob­al ship­per Maersk have announced a new ded­ic­ated New Zea­l­and coastal ser­vice, Maersk Coastal Con­nect, with two New Zea­l­and crewed con­tain­er ships start­ing in July 2022.

Mr Har­ris­on says these new ves­sels will employ skilled New Zea­l­and crews includ­ing Mari­time Uni­on mem­bers.

He says there are mul­tiple bene­fits for the trans­port sec­tor and wider soci­ety.

“Just to start with, the new ship­ping ser­vices will ease port and road con­ges­tion, improve sched­ule reli­ab­il­ity, and reduce emis­sions.”

Mr Har­ris­on says the big les­son from the last two years is New Zea­l­and needed its own ship­ping cap­ab­il­ity that could provide resi­li­ence and reli­ab­il­ity in a volat­ile glob­al situ­ation.

He says the next goal for the Mari­time Uni­on would be work­ing with industry, Gov­ern­ment and train­ing pro­viders to build oppor­tun­it­ies for young New Zeal­anders want­ing a career in the mari­time industry.