Member Update
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MEMBER UPDATE AUGUST 2020 | AUGUST 2020 PAGE | 02 CHRIS SHIRLING-ROOKE REFLECTS Mersey Maritime is delighted to present the August edition of our Ezine. It is fair to say that it is a slightly slimmer version than last month but there is still plenty going on to report about from across the maritime industry in the Liverpool City Region. After a tumultuous few months dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, it also possibly means colleagues have been enjoying some much needed relaxation and family time as we all look forward to the Autumn and the challenges and opportunities that are before us. And looking forward is very much the theme of many of the articles in our publication this month, both amongst the range of members that we showcase and in terms of our own activities. We are delighted to shine a light on O’Connors Law who are our ‘Member of the Month’ this time around. O’Connors is an award-winning firm of lawyers and business advisers that blends corporate, commercial, insurance and regulatory expertise to help clients manage risks and opportunities – wherever in the world they are doing business. Another illustration of the dynamism of the maritime business services sector that we have in our region. E Elsewhere in the publication we have our regular thought leadership piece from Western Union Business Solutions, this month focusing around the power of partnerships in business and featuring comments around a very C familiar face from the ‘Dragon’s Den’ TV series. It is particularly good to see news of new team appointments for Roxtec UK and Bathgate Business E Finance and many opportunities within the sector around extra capacity for I Stena Line on their busy Birkenhead-Belfast ferry route and the possibility of autonomous vessels in our waters in the near future. We hope that has whetted your appetite to read on! P Mersey Maritime is committed to delivering a strong programme of events and activities in the run up to the end of the year. In recognition of the ongoing uncertainties that we face and the reality that many businesses are T not wholly ‘back in the office’, these events will be a hybrid of in person (socially distanced, of course!) and virtual. We think there is an appropriate H and sensible balance to be struck between the two. Here are just a few highlights for you to be able to look forward to, attend and get involved with. For more details and registration for all these events, please visit the Mersey G Maritime website here: https://merseymaritime.co.uk/mm-events/ Digital Face-2-Face: Tuesday 01 September, 9am to 10am (note the U slightly different time to usual). We will be joined by Simon Reid, Head of Advanced Manufacturing at the Liverpool Growth Hub. During the session Simon will provide an update from the Growth Platform and O activity across the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority including the Building Back Better economic recovery plan. Simon will also discuss the development of a new Maritime & Logistics Board for the H region, which is being led collaboratively by Mersey Maritime and the Growth Platform. T Third Global Trade Outlook Series: Wednesday 09 September, 8.30am to 10am. This is the final of our webinar events in partnership with Western Union Business Solutions and Maritime UK. I am sure members will agree that they have provided fascinating insights into the state of and prospects for international trade. This time we are fortunate to have a presentation by the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, His Excellency The Hon. George Brandis QC, together with a Q&A session with Steve Dietz the First Secretary (Trade) at the Australian Commission plus another excellent panel line up and the opportunity for a further deep dive into the state of the UK economy from Oxford Economics. Technology and Innovation Forum: Wednesday 23 September. The latest in our series of specialist and focused forums, the TIF was launched in July 2020 and aims to explore technology advancements, opportunities and the potential for innovation across the maritime industry. This event will be a practical workshop and more details can be obtained by emailing: [email protected] Hybrid Face-2-Face: first Tuesday in October. We expect to return our core ‘Face-2-Face’ event to a monthly feature in our calendar from October. The details of what this will look like are still being determined but there will be the option for a small number of colleagues to attend in person at the Maritime Knowledge Hub and also virtually. Watch this space! ** Hold the date! ** Second Maritime Exchange Conference: Thursday 15 October. During Maritime UK week, it is our intention to hold our second major thought leadership conference. Again, it won’t be possible to hold this event in the same way as last year, but we are looking at an innovative option for a hybrid of in person and virtual at a COVID-19 safe venue in Liverpool. Our focus will be on all the big topical issues in the maritime industry both locally and nationally at the present time and members can be assured of a typically interesting line up of speakers. More details will be announced very soon! We are also looking to arrange a number of focused events for our Sponsor, Partner and Executive Club members with key personnel in the industry, including prominent parliamentarians. These will be by invitation only but will provide an opportunity for engagement and discussion in an environment that allows members at this level to maximise the opportunities that Mersey Maritime is able to provide. If you are interested in upgrading your membership so you can enjoy this level of engagement, please contact Ruth or Stacey in the Mersey Maritime team. As you can see, we are robustly focused on starting to return our business back to something like the normal we had before the pandemic lockdown came into being. As you will read in a later article in this publication, Mersey Maritime is very conscious of the circumstances that its members find themselves in at the present time. The unprecedented and seismic shock that the economy has faced in recent months is bound to have an impact on us all, nobody is immune from it. But we firmly believe that our dynamic and exceptional maritime industry here in the Liverpool City Region and wider north west, can weather this storm and the uncertainty that it brings. The fundamentals of the British economy remain strong and we look forward to a steady return to growth and optimism over the Autumn months. And we have a major opportunity, particularly through the Autumn Comprehensive Spending Review, to secure major and transformational investment support into the industry here in our region. We are razor focused on that objective. Whatever happens, members can be assured that Mersey Maritime will be ready and available to support them in any way possible. Have a fantastic September and Autumn and the whole team look forward to seeing you soon at one of our planned events, physically or in the virtual realm! | AUGUST 2020 PAGE | 04 WE MUST REMAIN OPTIMISTIC DURING CHALLENGING TIMES There is no doubt that the last few months have seen unprecedented challenges presented and responded to in our country and across the world. The start of 2020 saw many reasons for optimism. On Brexit, the political turmoil that had gripped the country since mid-2016 appeared to be coming to an end as the UK formally withdrew from the European Union and began to chart a stable path to finding its new place in the world. Locally we celebrated all that is good about the maritime sector in the region with the biggest and most high profile Mersey Maritime Industry Awards to date. They followed the ‘Third UK-US Maritime Nations Forum’ in Liverpool which focused on one aspect of a outward looking, globally focused country in the years' ahead. And then COVID-19 struck. The extent of the economic shock and beating that the economy took in March and April in particular, has been laid bare in graphic and stark detail. We have seen unprecedented drops in output and a retraction in the capacity of the economy not seen since the greatest depressions of the last century and, in effect, two lost years of economic activity. The latest economic analysis officially records that the UK is in recession and the first waves of substantial redundancies are beginning to be felt with unemployment rising rapidly, albeit the true extent not yet fully realised with the official statistics not necessarily reflecting the complete picture on the ground. Doom and gloom you might say! However, this cannot and must not be the approach and mindset that we adopt. It is Mersey Maritime’s conviction that the fundamentals of the UK economy are sound, not least if you analyse the origins of the recession and consider how it is different to those which have gone before. For this recession is in effect a state sanctioned and initiated one. As Martin Beck reminded us at our second joint Western Union Businesses Solutions, Mersey Maritime and Maritime UK ‘Global Trade Outlook Series’ webinar in July, ‘There is nothing fundamentally wrong with many businesses. It was just that they had to temporarily shut down. Household finances have also held up quite well and the Government has injected a hell of a lot of money into the economy.’ PAGE | 05 | AUGUST 2020 Each of us has a responsibility to aid the economic recovery we need to see.