"We should set course for this together in Rostock," said Alfred Hartmann, President of the VDR.

On competitive framework conditions, Hartmann explained: "In view of the restart after the pandemic, we now face the task of securing and shaping the future of maritime shipping from Germany. Training the next generation is one of the prerequisites for this." The VDR President therefore called for the measures to promote the location to be maintained and the framework conditions to be further improved, similar to those in neighboring European countries: "Our immediate neighbors are not sleeping, but are doing everything they can to promote their shipping industry in order to survive against global competition - we should take this as an example."

Commenting on the planned extension of the location support program with wage tax retention and ancillary wage cost support, Hartmann said: "We are very grateful to the federal government and the Bundestag for extending the location support. Together with our efforts through the Stiftung Schifffahrtsstandort Deutschland, we have succeeded in securing training and employment as far as possible despite ten years of crisis. We must not let up with these efforts." According to Hartmann, this is why the training rate in the shipping industry will remain above average. In recent years, an average of around 1,200 junior staff in 75 companies have been prepared for on-board professions each year through the promotion of young talent financed by the shipping industry alone.

The VDR President also called for liquefied natural gas to be used as a "bridge fuel" for the time being with a view to climate protection: "The engines that would make shipping CO2-free already exist today - the only thing missing is the appropriate fuel. That's why we still need LNG for the time being." However, with ship engines that could use liquefied natural gas as a fuel, it would be easy to start using alternative, so-called "green" gases on board on a large scale as soon as sufficient quantities were available, as these engines could be converted to such gases without great effort.

In this context, Hartmann clearly rejected calls for an early end to the use of combustion engines: "It is not the engines that are the problem, they are the prerequisite for a successful path to CO2-free shipping. It is the fuels that matter. Anyone calling for the scrapping of combustion engines for ships is blocking the path to a CO2-free future."

In addition to the VDR President, German captain Sebastian Hurst, one of the many seafarers who have been affected by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in recent months, will also be speaking at the NMK. The captain of a Hapag-Lloyd AG container ship will report on his experiences at the Shipping Forum on Tuesday. As early as Monday, the new shore power system will be approved in Rostock-Warnemünde with the help of the cruise ship "AIDAsol" from VDR member AIDA Cruises as part of the NMK.

The NMK, organized by the Federal Ministry of Economics, is the industry meeting of the maritime industry with politicians that usually takes place every two years. The patron is once again Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will speak at the conference, which will be held largely virtually this time, along with three other federal ministers.