I’m very conscious that I would be one of the numbers of owners to be called upon to draw the string today and it was a personal privilege for me to do so.

First of all, a couple of housekeeping announcements, I would like to, on behalf of everybody here, thank the faculty for their generosity this morning. Nobody believes it’s easy when 400 people turn up and start going round opening doors looking what’s behind panels. Everybody treated us with extraordinary generosity and I thank everyone for doing that.

Secondly I would like to compliment all the cadets in the balcony there for their impressive parade this morning. I asked Mr. Teeka how long they’d been standing there and he said 10 minutes but I suspect it was probably a few minutes more than that. But nonetheless, it was a very great turn out and I give credit to all those who took part in it. Thank you very much indeed.

Shipping is going through and extraordinary boom time at the moment. It’s the first time in the memory of most people in this room that the productivity of the GDP of the world’s shipping industry has been at such a high level. All sectors of the shipping industry, oil tankers, dry cargo, offshore, passenger carriers, are recouping extraordinarily generous income profits. And there has been an extraordinary amount of investment in re-engineering the world’s fleets of all shapes and sizes.

I was at the India Shipping Summit earlier this week where it was stated and nobody disputed it that there was something close to 13 billion dollars worth of new ships coming into the Indian service or service of the Indian freight cargoes in the next 5 years. There’s 13 billion more investment on top of what’s being done to complement the 5-year plan. That’s an extraordinary amount of commitment into the hardware of the maritime trade. But shipping is a system and a system is only as good as the weakest link and it’s easier to invest money in ships and forget about the people that man them. And the safety of the shipping industry will be as good as the weakest link and we need to invest as much money in manning and people and training as we do in the hardware going forward.

You ask any owner and he’ll tell you that he has quality crew and I want to just take a moment to talk on what I think quality means. It has to start with safety. I’ve been extraordinarily impressed the while I’ve been here as a way of the safety agenda and the least of discussions of all things and even been to all the workshops we go, and all the safety signs, etc. And there is no point in training people who are going to injure themselves and be taken out of the game. So it starts with the personal safety level and goes on to talk about operational safety, parts and pieces like that going forward.

Secondly, seafaring remains at its heart a practical activity as much as an intellectual activity. This is where people need to know what to do out there at sea and when they’re on their own a long way from home. People need to know how to carry out practical activities and it is very encouraging to see the workshops, where the amount of attention paid to practical training was invested, because that is still key to making sure ships are run successfully. You’re all very dedicated to the job showing individual leadership on the issues that they do and the way they handle it.

It was also particular pleasure for me today and I address this particularly to the cadets at the top because some 36 years ago, I was a cadet. I was one of you gentlemen up there. I was in a sea school and actually didn’t march in the morning as much as you guys did. And I had a wonderful time. I had the opportunity to not lead a mere life and to pursue the career I want to and it has enabled to get me to where I am today. I believe training in the maritime sector as well as the education as well as the ability to apply it to travel worldwide broadens the mind and allows you to think of the opportunities in front of you.

Maritime training is a really excellent starting point for life and whether you wish to go on and become a ship’s master or whether you want to come ashore into the shipping industry or whether you want to enter another industry, I really believe the world is your oyster if you really take part in the training that’ll be offered by this institution in going forward. So I wish you all well now.

I first met Teeka about four and half years ago and he talked to me about the vision for a world-class training centre. And four and half years ago it was just a vision and it’s an extraordinary achievement – what has been built and delivered here. It’s an extraordinary achievement!

As you walk around here, you could quite literally pick this campus up and put it anywhere in the world and it would not look out of place. And actually, you could put it anywhere in the world and it would look like a world leading visionary building. It’s an astonishing achievement to have done it in the location and to everybody who played a part in that, in delivering it on time, I want to offer my congratulations.

Going forward, it really does you credit and I think I used the word visionary – those who thought of this idea, those who committed to this idea, those who really stuck to it, really have delivered a visionary product that will have the capability to produce the world-class maritime staff of the future.

Going forward, I offer my congratulations to everybody. The cadets, I wish you all the best wishes for the future.