The Antwerp Chartering Club (ACC) hosted its ‘6th Grand Dinner’ on Thursday 12 September 2024. According to good tradition, this took place at the exclusive venue the Handelsbeurs in Antwerp.
Pierre Durot has been the proud president of the Antwerp Chartering Club since 2017. The independent club consists of around 100 Belgian and Belgian-based maritime professionals who are involved in chartering merchant vessels on a daily basis. These include ship owners as well as brokers, operators and charterers, of all types of vessels.
Bulk
Four times a year, ACC organises formal and informal meetings where members expand their network and exchange market opinions. Besides the social aspect, ACC also adds value to its members by providing them with educational assistance and new insights through a weekly overview of the latest trends in the chartering market. Every two years there is a big dinner with some 500 national and international guests, the largest community of which is active in the bulk segment.
Trade fair
It was with great pleasure that Durot addressed a welcome address to the invitees. “We are delighted to welcome you to the historic Handelsbeurs, built in 1531. The roots of the Handelsbeurs are deeply rooted in maritime history. Traders all over the world visited this great hall and made deals that defined the global market. It is the ideal location to host our 6th Grand Dinner there.”
“The ACC is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year and was started to boost chartering activities in Antwerp and Belgium,” he continued. “After 15 years, I am happy to say that we have already achieved great results. For example, we are supportively active in education, we cooperate with national and international maritime stakeholders and support the start-up of new chartering companies. I would like to raise a glass to good food, good wine and great company among friends.”
Manageable
Afterwards, Durot looks back on the event with satisfaction. “The reactions were very positive,” he tells Flows. “Most guests found the dinner especially very ‘manageable’. The dinner looks big, but it is quite small-scale compared to foreign dinners, where there are sometimes thousands of attendees. That intimacy made it very pleasant networking and dining for most charterers and their clients,” he says. “We also saw many international clients, including professionals from Singapore and Japan. We enjoyed hosting those.”
So what is moving in the chartering market? “There was a lot of talk at the table that evening, mainly about the global geopolitical turmoil. For two years now, there has been a lot of volatility, with days of rises and falls following one another. The influence of superpower China also provided food for thought and debate,” he says.
