Waiting for the storm to pass

Waiting for the storm to pass

IBIA Asia is looking for positives and has good news about its training courses

Time has really flown. As I am writing this report, it is already May 2020.

Many of the events planned for the first and second quarter of 2020 have either been cancelled or postponed by the storm of the global COVID- 19 pandemic. For IBIA Asia, the affected events so far in our planned 2020 activities are participation as speaker/ organiser in the Asia Pacific Maritime exhibition in March, and the IBIA Asia Annual dinner in April.

I am sure everyone of us have heard enough of COVID-19 effects, social distancing, lockdown of cities, growing fatality and cases across over 200 cities in the world. The extent of the economic damage for factories, companies that are folding, bankruptcy and millions of employees that are unemployed and retrenched worldwide makes for depressing news.

Have you ever heard this story about a mother who had two daughters:

The elder daughter married into a family selling umbrellas, and the younger daughter married into a family working laundry services.

The mother was always worried. On rainy days, she worried for the younger daughter that her laundry services business would be affected. On sunny days, she worried about the umbrella business of her elder daughter.

One day, a wise man learnt about her worries and told her that she was very blessed as no matter whether it was raining or sunny; she would have good news. She was delighted after hearing that and learned to appreciate both rainy and sunny days.

The morale of the story is the attitude you have to what happens to you.

Stay positive and look for another angle. We will learn and appreciate what we are now and what we had before.

We hope the COVID 19 storm will be over soon and a rainbow will appear to cheer us all up.

Training

The IBIA Asia office offers specialised training for the bunker sector in Singapore with courses approved and certified by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). We run Enhanced Bunkering Courses covering the Singapore Standard SS 600:2014 and Mass Flow Meter Technical Reference TR 48:2015. In March 2020, 10 trainees attended the course.

We have been running a new MPA-approved course since February 2020, on the new Singapore Standard SS 648:2019. During February, March and early April 2020, a total of about 240 trainees attended this 1-Day Training for approved Bunker Surveyors and Cargo Officers course.

Both our courses have been approved by MPA in May 2020 for grants of up to 90%, from 70% earlier, from the Maritime Cluster Fund for eligible trainees taking the courses between 1 May 2020 to 31 December 2020.

Interested parties are encouraged to contact Noraini noraini@ibia.net and Alex Tang regionalmanagerasia@ibia.net.

Alex Tang, CMarSci MIMarEST

Regional Manager: Asia

M +65 88766491

E  regionalmanagerasia@ibia.net

W www.ibia.net

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