Posted on: 27 January 2020
Data, ESG and the environmental agenda were the main themes of the Marine Money London Forum 2020 held at the Dorchester Hotel on 22 January.
Maritime London chief executive Jos Standerwick moderated the first discussion of the day. Entitled ‘Political uncertainties in the 2020s and the impact on shipping and finance’, the panel featured Citi’s Global Head of Shipping Shreyas Chipalkatty, Macquarie Group’s Commodity Strategist Serafino Capoferri, Drewry Shipping Consultants’ Managing Director Tim Power and Wynn Segall, Partner of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Discussion touched on the recently announced US–China trade agreement, which was generally felt to be positive despite scepticism about the claimed potential $200 billion of increased trade to China, especially in the energy sector. Like the short-term problems of Brexit, it was felt the US-China issue would eventually fix itself and was just a natural sequence in history.
Other takeaways from the session included the warning that demographic trends pose a serious disruptive threat to the economies of OECD countries since there simply won’t be as many consumers in the future as there have been in past decades. Also the observation that ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) policies are now an important factor in investment decisions that in turn drive trade flows and operations.
The event attracted record numbers with 392 delegates from 26 countries. Those interested in a fuller account of the day are invited to listen to the audio recordings of the event and download presentations here.
