NYK Shipmanagement to double recruitments from India

New Delhi, Feb 12 (UNI) NYK Shipmanagement, the Singapore-based technical arm of Japan's logistics provider Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) group, today said it will double recruitment of seafarers from India to manage its expanding global operations.

''We expect the NYK Group to have a fleet of over 900 vessels under its operations by 2010. To manage these ships, most of them under us, we plan to double the number of Indian seafarers to 900 by that year,'' the company's Chief Representative India Capt Tatsuo Kodama told reporters at a press conference to announce the opening of its new office here.

The office in New Delhi is the fourth, others being in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

The company has tied up with two maritime institutes in the country -- Tolani Maritime Institute, Pune, and R L Institute of Nautical Sciences, Madurai -- to grow the talent pool at the entry level posts.

''The new recruits will be given technical and onboard training by us,'' Capt Kodama said.

NYK Shipmanagement has training centres in Mumbai and Singapore.

It has 150 ships under its management globally.

In India, it partners in a joint venture between the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines, NYK Group and K-Line for a long-time charter of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier to import 2.5 million tonnes LNG per year from Quatar under the Petronet Project.

The project is owned by Petronet LNG Ltd while GAIL (India) Ltd (12.5 per cent), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (12.5 per cent), Indian Oil Corporation (12.5 per cent), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (12.5 per cent), Gas de France (10 per cent) and Asia Development Bank (5.20 per cent) are the major shareholders.

The four-company consortium that won the contract for the new carrier also operates the two vessels already in service.

Under the agreement, NYK Shipmanagement provides management services to the two vessels -- one operated by SCI and the other by Mitsui.

UNI