Hellenic shipowners turned out to have been provided with a total of $65.78bn worth of ship finance throughout the last year, which represents a slight decline year-on-year.
According to the latest data released from Petrofin Bank Research, factors behind the decrease are said to be continuous drops in earnings and ship value, dismal perspective from overcapacity, inability to pay back loans and etc.
Petrofin said that “These adverse factors create difficult finance condition that only shipowners who are capable of repaying are provided with limited finance.” Amid improving financial situation of European banks, the financial institutions are expanding their support for domestic economy and shipowners. However, out of 51 banks, which are involved in Greek ship finance, including KFW, ABN AMRO, Citi, DVB, Nordea and Bremer, only 13 banks showed a 37.64% growth on average last year while 21 banks saw a 14.6% decrease in ship finance.
The research group stressed that people in the industry need to eye on export finance which is actively carried out by financial institutions in China and Korea. While improvement is expected in European shipping industry as well as global economic condition and international trade around 2014, a prospect of shipping market is still unclear since it depends on investment activity and fleet oversupply.