Cross-Screen Marketing Game-Changer For Mobile - Business Insider

Mobile remains a fraction of ad spend for many large advertisers.?It's not that brands don't understand the mobile revolution.?They know that consumer time is splitting across devices as smartphones and tablets occupy more and more of our attention.?

The question ad buyers have is whether advertising across screens can really help drive forward an overall campaign goal better than TV-only or traditional online campaigns.?In other words, is it worth the trouble??

A growing number of mobile ad industry companies are arguing that a cross-screen approach integrating mobile?is?more effective.?They're betting that with their cross-screen pitch ??and with ad platforms that can deliver premium impressions at scale ??they can sell marketers on mobile.?

In a new report?from?BI Intelligence,?we take stock of cross-screen marketing, analyze how audiences are becoming increasingly screen agnostic, examine how cross-screen advertising can be made effective, dig into the measurement and analytics problem, and offer a side-by-side comparison of the different mobile tracking technologies.

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>>

Here's a brief overview of why cross-screen marketing will be a game changer:

• Audiences are becoming increasingly digitally agnostic:?They are willing to consume the same content?? perhaps presented in different manners?? across screens. Users already habitually move across four screens, and there may be another screen on the way in the form of smart eyewear or wrist wear. The opportunities for cross-screen marketers will multiply as we move across screens to accomplish tasks, or use them simultaneously.?
• Cross-screen marketing tactics are already achieving real results:?AdColony, a mobile video ad company, employed a cross-screen marketing strategy for a client's consumer packaged goods brand.?They targeted one set of users with just a TV ad about the brand, and another set of users with a combined TV, iPad, and iPhone campaign.?Unaided brand recall was 43% for audiences who had been exposed to the cross-screen campaigns, and only 6% for the TV-only campaign.?Purchase intent was 18% for the TV-only crowd, and 31% for the cross-screen campaign's audience.?
• Several additional strategies have proven to be very powerful as well: In cross-screen retargeting, users are tracked and presented ads from sites they have visited in the past. While this technique is now familiar on PCs, it's only recently that retargeting across screens has become feasible. Frequency capping, where an individual is only presented an ad a defined number of times in a time period to avoid overwhelming and desensitizing prospects, should help as well.?
• The problem of attribution is the greatest barrier:?The largest barrier to effective cross-screen advertising is the?proper measurement of mobile advertising. Marketers refer to it as the attribution problem. Particularly on mobile, it's not always clear when ads lead to sales or conversions.?Metrics and business models differ across mediums, adding to the complexity.

In full, the?special report:

For full access to the report on Why Cross Screen Marketing Will Be A Game-Changer For The Mobile Industry sign up for a free trial subscription today.?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/cross-screen-marketing-game-changer-for-mobile-2013-5

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Steve Carell helps 'The Office' close its doors in moving finale

By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The doors of Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch closed for the last time on Thursday as NBC's "The Office" wrapped up after a nine-season run with a nostalgic finale featuring a long-awaited wedding and the return of the show's biggest star, Steve Carell.

Emmy-winning mockumentary "The Office," adapted from Ricky Gervais' British series of the same name, saw a documentary crew filming the daily lives of employees at the Dunder Mifflin paper company, led for several years by hapless boss Michael Scott, played by Carell.

On Thursday's 75-minute finale, set six months after the fictional documentary was released, the colleagues all reunite for the marriage of Machiavellian office manager Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and accountant Angela Martin (Angela Kingsley).

Carell entered the episode as a surprise guest at the wedding, uttering one of Michael Scott's best-known phrases - "That's what she said."

Later as he considered the romances that had formed at the workplace, Carell's character told the camera, "It's like all my children grew up and they married each other."

Over nine seasons, audiences have been treated to numerous office fights, friendships and romances on the NBC sitcom. One of the most compelling storylines was the growing romance of Jim and Pam, played by John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, as audiences watched them transition from friendship to marriage and parenthood.

For fans of the show, the season finale saw most of the long-standing cast members get their happy ending.

Stanley finally retires, Erin finds her birth parents, Andy capitalizes on becoming an unwilling viral video star, Kelly and Ryan run off into the sunset (albeit abandoning a baby in the process) and Jim and Pam decide to move to Austin, Texas.

The final scenes featured a montage of key moments, including Jim and Pam's romance and the numerous friendships that developed over the years.

"I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you've actually left them," Andy Bernard, played by Ed Helms, said wistfully.

The cast also reflected on the documentary that captured nine years of their lives at the company, which Jim described as "this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job."

"Imagine going back and watching a tape of your life. You can see yourself change ... watch yourself fall in love, become a husband, a father. You guys gave that to me," Jim said to the cameras.

LAUNCHING STARS, FALLING AUDIENCES

"The Office," which first aired in 2005, began with a relatively unknown cast, led by Carell, whose breakout film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" came out the same year.

The show made stars of many of its cast members, leading to high-profile movie roles, and its producers said last year that the outside success of "The Office" actors played a role in the decision to wind it down.

Carell left the show in season seven to focus on his rising film career, which has included roles in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone."

Helms also made the move to the big screen with roles in "The Hangover" franchise, and Krasinski starred in the recent film "The Promised Land" with Matt Damon.

Mindy Kaling, who plays office mean girl Kelly Kapoor, landed her own Fox sitcom "The Mindy Project," while Craig Robinson, who plays warehouse manager Darryl, scored film roles in "Pineapple Express" and upcoming "This Is the End."

After Carell's exit in 2011, audiences began to turn away from "The Office" and viewership fell to about 4 million last year per episode from a high of about 8 million in 2008.

The show's culmination comes on the heels of another NBC comedy, "30 Rock," bowing out after seven seasons in February.

Prior to the finale, an hourlong retrospective of the show featured cast members and producers talking about the impact of "The Office" on their careers and why fans were drawn to it.

"This is a perfect time for the show to come to a close," Wilson said. "There's a finality to it and a sadness to it."

Wilson had sought to create a spin-off show led by his character Dwight, but it was not picked up for broadcast.

The unlikely star of the show has been the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which prior to the show was known for coal mining but not anymore.

As the series drew to a close, tens of thousands of people gathered in Scranton earlier this month to give a rousing send-off to the sitcom that changed the image of the city forever.

"Thank you, Scranton," Carell told the crowd. "This all is because of you."

NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/steve-carell-helps-office-close-doors-moving-finale-033915214.html

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Kenya's National eyes funding in fight for market share

By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI (Reuters) - National Bank of Kenya will raise more than 10 billion shillings in a cash call next year to fund expansion and increased lending, its chief executive said.

Ranked number 12 out of 43 lenders in east Africa's biggest economy, National declined from a top-three lender in 1996, as its model of focusing on government banking and personal lending was upended by newer, nimbler rivals like Equity.

Munir Ahmed, appointed to lead the bank eight months ago from Standard Chartered, said the key goal was to double the bank's return on capital employed to between 20 and 25 percent.

National is targeting revenue growth, with greater focus on sectors such as home loans and business lending, and a sharp cut in its cost-to-income ratio.

"That will come from growing, very aggressively, the 8 billion shillings we had as revenue at the end of 2012 to 31 billion by 2017," Ahmed told Reuters.

"That is a 32 percent compounded annual growth rate over the five-year period."

The bank, which posted a 53 percent drop in profit last year, bucking the trend of profit growth across the industry, will centralise operations to cut costs and wastage.

"We have got cost-to-income ratio upwards of 70 percent. The aim is by December we should be down to no more than 65 percent and to push that down over the following 12 months to just over 50 percent," the chief executive said.

He blamed an over-concentration of lending to individuals for the profit drop in 2012, saying the bank is cutting back on personal loans.

Wary of higher default levels, the bank could not raise lending rates for small borrowers who accounted for 70 percent of total loans at a time when cost of funds soared due to a jump in official rates.

"We have cut it down, we are well on our way to achieve an end of year of reduction to no more than 35 percent of our balance sheet," Ahnmed said.

"That cushions from any impact of concentration on a very risky sector."

National, which is 70 percent owned by the government and the state pension fund, aims to double its profit this year, Ahmed said.

It will invest 400 million shillings in opening of 10 new outlets this year as well as acquisition of electronic channels like mobile phone and Internet banking.

It has also cast its eye on neighbouring countries.

"We are already looking at South Sudan, Somalia and Uganda as the first areas that we go in probably in that order," Ahmed said, adding it could open outlets in South Sudan next year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenyas-national-eyes-funding-fight-market-share-135238038.html

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Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, CNN And Evernote Apps Coming To Google Glass Today

Google announced a number of new partner apps today on stage at Google I/O during the "Developing for Glass" session. Facebook and Twitter were the highlights of the list, which also included Evernote, Tumblr, Elle and CNN, in addition to the previously announced NYT and Path apps.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/uWF1MS1Rwxc/

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Insight: Bank documents portray Cyprus as Russia's favorite haven

By Stephen Grey, Michele Kambas and Douglas Busvine

NICOSIA (Reuters) - When the Cyprus bank run began earlier this year, Russians set much of the pace. Documents seen by Reuters show that as the Mediterranean island headed towards financial meltdown in March, most notable among companies transferring money from the country's two main banks were Russians and East Europeans.

At least 3.6 billion euros ($4.67 billion) was removed in two weeks by big depositors, according to the documents. Though many companies listed initially appear obscure, a Reuters analysis shows a significant proportion are vehicles for foreign investors more at home in Moscow or Kiev than Nicosia.

The lists give an insight into the March crisis and how the tax haven, with a population of just 1.1 million, had amassed bank deposits that peaked at 72 billion euros - more than four times the island's GDP.

Prepared in April by private sector lenders Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank, and passed to lawmakers by the island's central bank, the documents list 5,323 transactions, most previously undisclosed. They detail transfers of 100,000 euros or more from Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank in the two weeks before Cyprus closed its banks on March 16 as it desperately negotiated an international rescue.

Reuters analyzed 129 companies that each transferred 5 million euros or more over the two-week period, collectively accounting for 1.9 billion euros. Of those companies, 95 could be traced.

Out of that group, 34 have links to Russia, five have links to Ukraine and two to Kazakhstan. The remainder comprise companies from Cyprus and other countries including tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Dutch Antilles. By value, more than half the transactions were made in dollars.

"This list verifies as well-founded Cyprus' reputation as an offshore economy used as a conduit for people, particularly Russians, to hold large sums of money, often to avoid paying tax and without too much scrutiny," said Michael McIntyre, professor of law and a tax expert at Wayne State University in the United States.

While the transfers appear mostly related to moving money out of Cyprus, Reuters could not establish where the funds went. It is possible some transfers were between banks within Cyprus.

Deposits that did flow out of the country had to be funded by emergency liquidity assistance from the European Central Bank, according to analysts. In effect, the ECB was paying for depositors, many of them Russian, to remove money from Cyprus before those depositors could be compelled to contribute to the international rescue of the island.

BIGGEST TRANSFER

As debts threatened to overwhelm Cyprus early this year, money began to flow out of the country in fluctuating amounts. In January 1.7 billion euros left the island and a further 900 million in February, according to Central Bank of Cyprus figures.

The run accelerated in March as Cyprus found it had few friends among international institutions suffering bail-out fatigue. Many of the biggest transfers were by firms linked to Russia.

One of the largest was listed under the name of UCP Industrial Holdings, which is recorded as moving 80.2 million euros out of the Bank of Cyprus on March 7. UCP Industrial Holdings is part of United Capital Partners, a $3.5 billion Russian investment firm led by Ilya Sherbovich, a former head of investment at Deutsche Bank Russia and now a board director of the oil giant Rosneft.

Sherbovich, whose UCP fund recently acquired a stake in VKontakte, a fast-growing social network known as the "Russian Facebook", told Reuters: "Our group has several dozen legal entities, and some of them have accounts at Bank of Cyprus, but we don't use those as primary accounts.

"Anybody serious who works on financial markets wouldn't have left any significant amounts in the Cyprus banks. Very simple reason: Look at the share price chart of the Bank of Cyprus. It went to zero many months before the freeze happened."

He could not confirm the transaction listed in the Cypriot documents and said his companies did not keep big deposits in Cyprus. A spokeswoman for UCP said the transaction "must be a mistake or incorrect information".

On March 16, the Cyprus government shut banks amid discussions over imposing losses on depositors as the price for an international rescue. On the day before, a company called Trellas Enterprises moved 2 billion roubles ($63.85 million) out of Bank of Cyprus. Trellas Enterprises is majority-owned by Maxim Nogotkov, an entrepreneur who controls Svyaznoy, one of the biggest retailers of cell phones in Russia. Nogotkov, 36, is listed by Forbes as having a net worth of $1.3 billion.

Nogotkov confirmed that he controlled his mobile phone and banking interests in Russia through Trellas, but declined to comment on the transfer recorded in the bank list.

"We never comment on financial transfers or mergers and acquisitions activity," Nogotkov said by telephone.

Asked whether he was considering restructuring his business interests in light of Cyprus' financial meltdown, Nogotkov said: "Not actively. We don't have any urgent decisions to restructure (the business)."

Another company illustrating the Russia connection is O1 Properties Limited, which moved 10.1 million euros out of Bank of Cyprus. The company is controlled by Boris Mints, a Russian politician turned businessman, and this year bought the White Square business centre in Moscow for $1 billion.

In the 1990s Mints was a state official handling issues relating to property and local authorities. From 2004 until 2012 he was chairman of the board of Otkritie Financial Corporation, which describes itself as Russia's largest independent financial group by assets. He is now president of the firm.

Mints was not available for comment. A spokesman for O1 Properties said: "O1 Properties keeps an account at the Bank of Cyprus to use it for regular business activities. We didn't know that Cyprus banks (would) shut. O1 Properties suffered losses. We do not comment (on the) total loss."

EXPENSIVE WORDS

The troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund insisted on tough terms for providing billions to stop Cyprus going bust. As talks progressed, speculation began to spread that any package for Cyprus would include levying money from bank depositors - an unprecedented move that came to be known as a bail in, rather than a bail out.

The impact of what politicians and officials said - and did not say - is reflected in the pattern of fund outflows.

On March 4, depositors withdrew 261 million euros from the two banks, according to the transfer lists. Late that day, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers in the euro zone, was asked whether the rescue of Cyprus would affect bank depositors. He did not give a clear answer. The next day depositors yanked 315 million euros out of the banks.

Account holders were further unnerved on March 5 when Panicos Demetriades, the island's central bank governor, said depositors might face a special levy on interest income for three years. Over the next two days transfers leapt to 342 million euros and 491 million euros; the latter figure including the 80.2 million euros withdrawn by UCP Industrial Holdings.

NON-RUSSIANS

As fears of losses mounted, Russians were not the only depositors who transferred large sums of money from the tax haven's banks. There were also Cypriot companies, individuals both Cypriot and foreign, and the occasional well-known international firm.

These included Apax Partners, a private equity group based in London. A subsidiary, Apax Mauritius Holdco Ltd, moved 68.8 million euros from the Bank of Cyprus on March 8. A spokeswoman for Apax Partners confirmed that it controlled Apax Mauritius Holdco but declined to comment further.

Previous news reports have noted how the Electricity Authority of Cyprus transferred 19 million euros out of Laiki Bank just days before it was closed. The documents seen by Reuters show the authority also transferred 22 million euros out of Bank of Cyprus between March 1 and 15.

The Electricity Authority said there was nothing unusual in the transfers. "This represented payments for heavy fuel oil ... our annual fuel costs are 650 million," said Costas Gavrielides, a spokesman for the authority.

MYSTERY COMPANIES

While some readily identifiable companies appear on the lists of transfers, what is striking is the complex nature of many entries.

Glenidge Trading, which transferred 22.5 million euros out of the Bank of Cyprus, is registered in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven often favored because of its British-based legal system and lack of transparency. Glenidge was the vehicle through which a Cypriot company called DCH Investment UA Limited acquired an interest this year in the Karavan group of shopping malls in Ukraine, according to local reports and Cypriot and Ukrainian corporate filings.

In turn DCH Investment UA Limited is controlled by one of Ukraine's richest men, Oleksander Yaroslavsky, according to corporate filings. A representative for Yaroslavsky did not respond to requests for comment about Glenidge and the Cypriot bank transfer.

Some companies that made several of the largest transfers could not be traced. They include Jarlath Limited, which moved 76 million euros, and Accent Delight International, which moved 27 million.

Also on the list is Rangeley Services Limited, which transferred 9.3 million euros from Bank of Cyprus on March 15. A company of that name is registered at an address near Leeds in Britain and owned by Jason Rangeley, who is described in company records as an agricultural contractor.

But when asked if the transfer of 9.3 million euros was anything to do with him, Jason Rangeley said: "No ... I wish it was."

Rangeley, a self-employed farmer, said he had set up his company because he had hoped to buy a few sheep. "It just never came off." He said his company is dormant. It remains unclear who owns the company involved in the Cypriot transfer. ($1 = 0.7705 euros) ($1 = 31.3252 Russian roubles)

(Clarifies in paragraph 26 that depositors might face levy on interest, not capital)

(Stephen Grey and Michele Kambas reported from Nicosia; Douglas Busvine reported from Moscow. Additional reporting by Himanshu Ojha and Natalie Huet in London, Olga Sichkar in Moscow and Olzhas Auyezov in Kiev; Editing By Richard Woods and Simon Robinson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-bank-documents-portray-cyprus-russias-favorite-haven-111838970.html

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Topography of Eastern Seaboard muddles ancient sea level changes

May 16, 2013 ? The distortion of the ancient shoreline and flooding surface of the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain are the direct result of fluctuations in topography in the region and could have implications on understanding long-term climate change, according to a new study.

Sedimentary rocks from Virginia through Florida show marine flooding during the mid-Pliocene Epoch, which correlates to approximately 4 million years ago. Several wave-cut scarps (rock exposures), which originally would have been horizontal, are now draped over a warped surface with up to 60 meters variation.

Nathan Simmons of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and colleagues from the University of Chicago, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Syracuse University, Harvard University and the University of Texas at Austin modeled the active topography using mantle convection simulations that predict the amplitude and broad spatial distribution of this distortion. The results imply that dynamic topography and, to a lesser extent, glacial adjustment, account for the current architecture of the coastal plain and nearby shelf.

The results appear in the May 16 edition of Science Express, and will appear at a later date in Science Magazine.

"Our simulations of dynamic topography of the Eastern Seaboard have implications for inferences of global long-term sea-level change," Simmons said.

The eastern coast of the United States is considered an archetypal Atlantic-type or passive-type continental margin.

"The highlight is that mantle flow is a major component in distorting the Earth's surface over geologic time, even in so-called 'passive' continental margins," Simmons said. "Reconstructing long-term global sea-level change based on stratigraphic relations must account for this effect. In other words, did the water level change or did the ground move? This could have implications on understanding very long-term climate change."

The mantle is not a passive player in determining long-term sea level changes. Mantle flow influences surface topography, through perturbations of the dynamic topography, in a manner that varies both spatially and temporally. As a result, it is difficult to invert for the global long-term sea level signal and, in turn, the size of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, using east coast shoreline data.

Simmons said the new results provide another powerful piece of evidence that mantle flow is intimately involved in shaping Earth's surface and must be considered when attempting to unravel numerous long-term Earth processes such as sea-level variations over millions of years.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/jW9qO3BU-Bs/130516182028.htm

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Amid Recession and Crisis, Greece?s Shipping Industry Steams Ahead

On December 5 last year, the Ob River, an 288-metre LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) tanker with a capacity of 84,682 deadweight tonnes chartered by Russian energy giant Gazprom, arrived at the Japanese port of Tobata. The ship belonged to Dynagas, a privately held company owned by George Prokopiou, one of Greece?s preeminent shipping magnates.

It was a delivery of historic significance. To make it, the Ob River had traveled through more than 3,000 miles of the bleak, icy expanse of the Northern Sea Route, accompanied by two nuclear-powered Russian icebreakers. It was the first ever sea voyage of an LNG cargo through the frozen waters north of Siberia, cutting the distance traveled from Norway to Japan by more than 5,000 miles compared to the Suez Canal route.

Sitting in his office overlooking the Saronic Gulf in the southern suburbs of Athens, a large map of the globe lined with sea routes on the wall beside him, the forbidding Prokopiou remembers how he got into the LNG game. ?The idea of transporting liquefied natural gas was droning around in my brain since 2003. I could see that this would be the century of gas. There are plentiful supplies, it is half the price of oil and it is also a quick fix for pollution and CO2 emissions. This is particularly important for the cities of China and India as they expand, to keep pollution under control,? he tells TIME in a deep, gravelly voice.

Foreseeing the possibilities created by the accelerated melting of Arctic ice, in 2004, Prokopiou ordered two LNG tankers to be built according to ice-class specifications. The vessels had to be fitted with reinforced hulls capable of withstanding the Arctic ice and with equipment able to function in temperatures as low as -35 degrees Celsius. Because of the proximity to the North Pole, conventional navigation systems did not work properly, so they had to be replaced by custom-made, Pole-compatible ones. Crew training took a year-and-a-half, and included a spell at Russia?s Makarov Academy, based in St. Petersburg, where crew-members were taught the secrets of navigating through a frozen desert.

The epic journey of the Ob River is a testament to the farsightedness and the global reach of Greek shipping. Greece, a small country of 11 million, is the world?s foremost shipping superpower, and has been almost without interruption for the last four decades. According to the latest figures from the Union of Greek Shipowners, the Greek-owned ocean-going fleet consists of 3,428 ships, totaling 245 million deadweight tonnes in capacity. This equals 15.6 percent of the carrying capacity of the entire global fleet, including 23.6 percent of the world tanker fleet and 17.2 percent of dry bulk.

Greece?s shipping companies defy almost every stereotype that Greeks have been associated with these past years. They are ultra-competitive in a truly globalized market; their family-based structures are an indispensable source of strength rather than weakness; and they are unabashed proponents of the free market when it comes to the transcontinental sea trade, even while in Greece itself, most industries still struggle under the weight of over-regulation and barriers to competition. In a reversal of the narrative that has dominated headlines, in shipping ? in particular the container sector ? it is well-positioned Greeks who are ?bailing out? mismanaged German shipping funds, which over-extended themselves before the global shipping crisis hit in 2008 and are now selling off their ships for a pittance.

Greek shipping was also a key enabler and a major beneficiary of the rise of China during the previous decade. It is estimated that in 2007, at the peak of the China boom, 60% of the Asian giant?s raw material needs were supplied by Greek-owned ships. As another major shipowner, Thanasis Martinos of Eastern Mediterranean Maritime, explains, Greeks benefited because ?we are the taxi drivers of world shipping. We are mostly free of long-term contracts ? unlike, say, the Japanese ? and we can go wherever the highest profit opportunities take us.? This week, top names in shipping, including Prokopiou, are accompanying Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to Beijing on a much-publicized trip aimed at strengthening commercial ties between the two countries.

At home, however, there are ominous signs on the horizon for Greece?s shipping elite. The preferential tax treatment they have enjoyed for decades is under threat, questioned ? at times aggressively ? by the country?s left-wing official opposition, SYRIZA, as well as the EU?s Directorate-General for Competition. As Greek politicians seek to divert attention away from their own failings and to quench the thirst of the public for the wealthy to pay their fair share, the Swiss bank accounts of shipowners have been leaked to the media and a number of them have been investigated by the tax authorities. None has been charged with any wrongdoing, and all other major shipping countries offer similarly ?efficient? tax regimes to their shipping companies (though not necessarily to their shareholders). These facts have not dampened the emerging account, both at home and abroad, of Greece?s shipping community as an island of provocative privilege heedless of the sea of debt and deprivation surrounding it.

This new climate has already led to some changes: earlier this year, the shipping-friendly Nea Democratia-led government increased the tax rates paid by shipping companies based in the port of Piraeus, near Athens, on vessels listed on foreign shipping registers. It also imposed extraordinary levies of 6-10 percent, for the period between 2012-5, on the foreign exchange imported by all Piraeus-based shipping-related companies.

The decision of the Union of Greek Shipowners not to oppose this move is perhaps related to their concerns about the likely successors of the current government. The political rise of SYRIZA the previous spring sent an unseasonable chill through the offices of Greek shipping?s elite. In June, when fears of a SYRIZA election victory were at their peak, unnamed shipowners issued dire warnings in the press about preparations to move their offices abroad.

Since then, however, both sides have sought a more conciliatory tone. In a meeting with the Union of Greek Shipowners this past December, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras voiced his support for the ?continued leading role of Greek shipping? in the international market. George Stathakis, a moderate SYRIZA MP who was present at the meeting, explains to TIME that his party does not plan to repeal the exemptions on non-distributed profits or on the capital gains of Greek-based shipping companies. The only significant change proposed, he says, is that shipping dividends will no longer be exempt from personal income taxation.

Martinos, for his part, is sanguine about the future relations between government and the shipping community. ?The perception in public opinion and in the political class ? including SYRIZA ? is that shipping benefits Greece. In coffee houses even in the smallest villages, people know this, and would not want to risk losing those benefits,? he says. In the trying years to come for Greece, this proposition will be sorely tested.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amid-recession-crisis-greece-shipping-industry-steams-ahead-182411013.html

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