Story Highlights

• Graduates of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) are highly sought after by international shipping interests to man their vessels. In an interview with JIS News, Director General of the
• Maritime Authority of Jamaica, Rear Admiral Peter Brady, said that approximately 95 per cent of the crews that are provided in Jamaica for international shipping lines are CMU graduates.
   

Graduates of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) are highly sought after by international shipping interests to man their vessels. In an interview with JIS News, Director General of the

Maritime Authority of Jamaica, Rear Admiral Peter Brady, said that approximately 95 per cent of the crews that are provided in Jamaica for international shipping lines are CMU graduates.

Admiral Brady made specific reference to Exmarr, a shipping line that specialises in the carriage of liquefied natural gas (LNG), indicating that they have made their preference for CMU-trained personnel clear through their recruitment drive.

“The company has looked at the quality of the seafarers that the CMU produces. They have found them to be very professional and they have, over the last three to five years, recruited up to about 120 male and female graduates,” he noted.

“They are a very mature-minded company, and all of the reports that come from Exmar point to the excellent performance of the Jamaican cadets and the seafarers that they have employed, and they are beginning now to outfit their ships with a large number of Jamaicans, because of their reliability and their professionalism,” he added.

According to the Director General, it has been a success story for Jamaica, and it also opens up the pathway for promotion to the highest levels (Captain and Chief Engineer) in that company, which is European.

“That bodes very well for Jamaica, because it shows that we are as good as any in this world of shipping,” he said. Admiral Brady explained that Jamaica, through its geographical location, is a strategic place for ships that trade on the north south and east west shipping lanes.

He said crewing is just one of a number of auxiliary services that Jamaica provides for ships going to their various ports of call in the hemisphere. These include ship repair and bunkering.

The Director General pointed out that Jamaica’s location has given rise to the provision of these services to facilitate ships that require a one-stop-shop facility at a port and that this in turn makes the port very attractive to vessels that are traversing the hemisphere.

http://jis.gov.jm/high-demand-for-cmu-graduates/