A ship management executive says ship management fees should be increased by between 5 and 10 per cent to offset rapidly rising costs.
Wallem Shipmanagement director Gerry Buchanan said fierce competition in the shipping industry had forced ship-management companies to keep their price levels unchanged over the past few years.
'If you compare, there are more ship managers around now and we at Wallem don't feel they offer the same services as any major ship management companies,' he said.
He said he had not approached clients about increasing fees, though he wished they would go up.
Mr Buchanan takes over as managing director of Wallem on June 9, succeeding Aswin Atre, who is retiring.
U. C. Agrwal, Wallem's fleet director, said the biggest problem facing ship managers was they had to repeatedly go back to the same source for their supply of crew, especially senior officers.
