Messina (Assarmatori) also mentioned the phenomenon, attributing the cause to the possible flagging out after the opening of the Italian Tonnage Tax to other EU flags according to Shipping Italy
“Sea Economy 2024”.
If we start from 2012 as an important point of quantification of the Italian fleet, we are talking about approximately 18 million gross tonnage, i.e. the capacity of ships flying the Italian flag. From 2016 to 2022 we witnessed just under 3% annual decline and if we look at the latest estimates for 2023 compared to 2022 there was a reduction of 8%”.
This was said by Mario Zanetti, president of Confitarma, delegate of the president of Confindustria for the economy of the sea and CEO of Costa Crociere, speaking on board the Costa Smeralda during the conference organized by Sole 24 Ore on “Sea Economy 2024”.
The Italian flag
“The competitiveness of the Italian flag and the fleet is one of the fundamental themes – he explained – because if we have to increase and make our country relevant at a European and global level in terms of the economy of the sea, the fleet counts. And here we are observing a phenomenon that is not going in the right direction.”
The decline means that “regionalisms, disparities in rules between states and areas of the world make Italian trade and shipping less competitive and therefore make the Italian fleet less competitive and less relevant on a global level” Zanetti further explained.
Decline in shipping flying
What to do to fix it? “It is essential – he explained – to work so that the centrality of the shipping sector ensures that there is an effort to make everything that will improve its competitiveness at an Italian level a priority: the issues are working on people, on infrastructures and on fleets and on carriers”.
Even his counterpart from Assarmatori, Stefano Messina, during the annual meeting of the association of which he is president, had spoken of a decline in shipping flying the Italian flag, motivating it with the effect of the so-called flagging out, i.e. ships of Italian shipping companies that choose to register their fleets with other community flags.
