Issue 2001/01

by Mindaugas Milinis

The international marine business and transit magazine “JURA / SEA” and the Klaipeda State Seaport Authorities (KSSA) awarded the Grand Anatolijus Prize to the Lithuanian Association of Stevedoring Companies (LASC) – the winners of the competition for marine business companies “Anatolijus 2000”. As the chairman of the jury Lina Gudelionyte-Gyliene, manager of the KSSA marketing department said, all stevedoring companies of the port could have been awarded the Grand Prize for the successful work last year, because all the companies handled bigger amounts of cargoes if compared with 1999. As the jury did not want to distinguish one separate company, it chose the whole association, uniting all the Klaipeda port stevedoring companies – the LASC.

According to the new Minister of Transport of the Lithuanian Republic Dailis Barakauskas, the LASC and the Confederation of Manufacturers, as well as the Klaipeda Chamber of Commerce and Trades are three associated structures, whose opinion must be taken into consideration while working out strategic questions.

Lithuania must become a state with two-way transit. The minister imagines the Klaipeda port and all the transit scheme to be orientated not for one, but for two-way transit. When this idea is realized, the whole state can expect maximum profit, because the East-West and West-East transit will be more active. This can be achieved by coordinating the actions of the Ministry of Transport not with separate subjects of economy, but with the associated structures of business. He considers the LASC as one of them. “Only joint opinion of this structure’s experts can provide best results. All actions should be aimed at the benefit for the subject of economy, because it will be also a benefit for the citizens of Lithuania and for the economy of Lithuania”, spoke the minister considering the role of LASC. “A lot of professional experts work in this association and their voice should be decisive when the Government makes decisions”.

While accepting the Grand Prize Aloyzas Kuzmarskis, the president of the LASC, said that his greatest desire at the moment was to see beside him his associates – vice-presidents: Sigitas Dobilinskas, Benediktas Petrauskas and Sigitas Sileris, and all the other members of the association, because only due to their joint efforts the LASC achieved the acknowledgement.

by Virgilijus Antanaitis

Speaking about the activities of the biggest shipping company in Lithuania over the period of the last ten years it is necessary to mention the phrase “in spite of…”. In spite of rather logical and sad end of 14 shipping companies of the former Minmorflot, that took place after the split of the USSR, the 15th, Lithuanian Shipping Company managed to survive and to maintain its fleet.

It was in the beginning of the nineties, when the neighbouring shipping companies took away their vessels under foreign flags and sold them in auctions, that LISCO started the fleet renovation program. Today the two thirds of 35 vessels of the company have been replaced by modern ships and the average age of the fleet is 14 years. The shipping company implements the program of renewal independently, for its own funds and without any help from the Government.

In those days the cornerstone was laid for successfully working ferry lines: Klaipeda-Kiel, Klaipeda-Mukran (Germany), Klaipeda Ahus (Sweden). Later on, developing its line services, Lithuanian Shipping Company established ferry line Klaipeda-Stockholm and container line “LISCO -Conline”, which connected the ports of Klaipeda-Hamburg-Bremen-Bremerhaven-Antevrpen-Rotterdam-Kaliningrad.

The “Anatolijus 2000” 2nd Prize laureate is company “Laivite”

Ship repairing Will Flourish in Klaipeda

Dalia Bikauskaite

The “Anatolijus 2000” 2nd Prise” was given to “Laivite” company, which managed to resist the situation not easier than the hurricane. But the company tries to overcome the difficulties and to implement modern ship repair technologies, does not refuse the plans to use synchronical lifting for ship repair, special lifting equipment for vessels to be lifted out of the water.

The process of privatisation created a lot of problems to the company. “Though the road to success is very complicated and full of various turning points, we are to believe in ourselves and only in this case we are able to reach our aims. Our efforts were fruitful. JSC”Baltlanta”, which is the main shareholder, after the successful negotiations with KLASCO acquired the rest part of “Laivite” shares and became the general owner of the company”, says Alina Rubeziene, assistant for research, of the director general of “Laivite”.

The real hurricane “Anatolijus”, which was blowing over on 4 December 2000 in Klaipeda Port, made a lot of loss to the company with the net value of 3 million Litas. During the hurricane the chain broke and the dry dock of the company was holed. If the dock had been repaired in another yard, the loss would have grown to 7 million Litas. But the enterprise managed to repair it in its own company and 3 million Litas were enough. Today it has already got the register documents and can be used as a dock with the same lifting capacity as it had before the accident.

Many enterprises in Klaipeda are reducing the number of employees, but in “Laivite” it is vice versa – people are hired to work. A year ago there were 380 employees in the company and now it has 610. Still a number of ship repair specialists are lacking, therefore we invite qualified workers from other repair yards.

A.Rubeziene has no doubts, that ship repairing in Klaipeda will survive. She believes that marine business has its future in Lithuania and that it will be growing.

Before the well-known crisis in 1998, which considerably effected the world shipping, Lithuanian Shipping Company, which was a strategic enterprise, was among the first five strongest enterprises with a big foreign currency input into the budget of the state. But in spite of the crisis LISCO continued to work profitably.

Lithuanian Shipping Company managed to resist the stormy situation of the last three exhausting years of the privatisation process. It is necessary to stress, that staying a profitable company and renewing the fleet, LISCO manages to keep its marine staff potential. Besides, during many years, the company considers its duty to help marine education in Lithuania by supporting Klaipeda Maritime College.

The reorganization of the company allowed to improve the management and to reach the level of quality and modernization, which corresponds to European standards. LISCO was one of the first companies among the Baltic states, which got the international ISM Code certificate. It is not in vain that the company “DFDS Tor Line” is so persistent in trying to procure Lithuanian Shipping Company headed by president Arturas Gedgaudas, and they think that it is a perspective company and rather attractive object for privatisation.

The “Anatolijus 2000” 3rd Prize laureate is company “Baltijos Grupe”

They came to marine business to work seriously and for long

Julijus Kovas

The head of the company Vytautas Sileika after the award said: “Each port company that makes business in a professional and civilized way, works for prestige and benefit of the port of Klaipeda. All together we have to work for that, if we wish our port to be one of the best ports in the Baltics”.

It is really difficult to evaluate the role of the company for the development of the marine complex in Lithuania. The company was founded in 1992 when it started with the forwarding and chartering activities. Very soon the scope of works increased. Rendering “door-to-door” services “Baltijos Grupe” is involved into forwarding, logistics, suggesting its clients the most rational alternatives of transportation and the safest routes for their cargo.

During 9 years of work in international marine market the company managed to attract to Klaipeda Port big volumes of different types of cargo, persuaded its clients that Lithuanian stevedoring companies provide high quality services and are able to handle effectively metals and fertilizers, timber and containers, that port services are working perfectly and Lithuanian transport infrastructure meets the highest requirements.

“Baltijos Grupe” added a lot to the development of line services between Lithuania and the ports of Germany, Belgium, UK, Holland and other countries of Europe. For a number of years the company has been the agent for “RIX Baltic Line”, “Flanders Latvia Service”, and “Ricon Line”.

High expertise of the company is confirmed by the international quality certificate ISO 9002, and the company was one of the first among Lithuanian marine forwarders to get it. The company is a member of international associations FONASBA and FIATA and a member of Lithuanian Association of shipbrokers and ship agents.

Irreproachable service, civilized way of work with clients and partners allowed “Baltijos Grupe” to gain the authority as a reliable marine company both in Klaipeda port and in international marine market as well.