International accountant and shipping adviser Moore Stephens believes that the shipping industry’s fortunes should be noticeably improved by 2015 if it maintains the recovery which got under way last year. But it warns that the prospects for recovery may still be fragile if the industry fails to meet a number of challenges, including tighter regulation and increased operating costs.

Moore Stephens shipping partner Richard Greiner says, “New Year resolutions are invariably a case of in one year and out the other. Generally speaking, it is wise not to make resolutions which are too ambitious; American troubadour Woody Guthrie had the right idea when he settled for, ‘Wash teeth, if any’. But the shipping industry can afford to be a little more bullish than previously in its aspirations for 2014.

“Shipping is in a different space to that which it occupied a year ago. Confidence rose to a three-year high over the course of 2013. Good things are predicted for freight rates in 2014, more companies are starting to consider new investment, and economic and political issues with the potential to hurt shipping are deemed less severe than twelve months previously.

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