FULL SPEED AHEAD

   

     January 2014 – a complete new year is waiting for us all with plenty of opportunities, possibilities, changes and challenges.

   We ended 2013 on a positive trend and beat last year's  (2012) revenue with a good margin, and so far in 2014 it looks like the trend is continuing. 

    Our focus this year is divided into four areas; We will continue to deliver top quality courses here in Manila.  We will continue to develop company specific courses together with our clients and it's important that we will continue
to develop our NSA cadet program even more.      

   Last, but not the  least we will focus on finalizing the future plans for NTC-M. In 2015, about 25 years ago when NTC-M was established;  it was intended to be a “short term” mission up to maximum of 20 years.  Since then, around 100,000 seafarers have been trained at NTC here in Manila, about 3,600 cadets have graduated and we are continuously having 1,500 cadets in “production”. 

   Our cadet intake this year will be around 350 and it has been stable for the last couple of years. For us, it proves that the program is important to our clients and we will do our utmost in order to make sure that quality is improved even more. 

   The EMSA issue is a big grey cloud in the sky – a lot of challenges lies ahead of us and the Philippines to align the curriculum at the schools to the new regulations in STCW 2010. 

   We at NTC-M  are doing our best  to help the schools in this respect both in developing courses together with them, carrying out audits twice a year to check alignment, and in developing our own benchmark tests up against the curriculum and STCW 2010.

   This year, as a trial, we will introduce an electronic tool to monitor the cadet´s development while on-board through “WebCadet”, a new IT tool approved by Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA), as an on-board training record book. Access to this will be given to the cadet, the dedicated training officer on-board, the shipboard training officer at the schools and not the least the shipowner/manning company.

   We are currently in a good dialogue with our landowner (TESDA) with whom we hope to have a new lease agreement settled soon,  allowing us to prepare Norwegian Training Center Manila for the future (2015 – 2035).

   2014 will be a busy yet exciting year; this is the year that will provide us the runway to fully take off the most promising and biggest project so far of NTC-M after its opening in the Philippines 25 years ago.

Best regards! 

Capt. Erik Freberg Blom 

Managing Director