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A. S. Bergantino: Tonnage tax: the Italia n proposal and the European experiences
While the importance of national merchant fleets and of maritime activities
in traditionally maritime nations are in tragic dec1ine, developing
countries are stepping up their production, having taken in Western technology,
expertise, know-how and capitaI and having developed new and
more efficient markets of production factors.
A direct consequence, partly due to the increasingly favourable environment
in these countries, has been the recent outsorcing of maritime
management functions to companies located beyond national borders. In
a great number of cases enterprises have being broken down in separately
managed activities, often relocated abroad, encouraging a migration
process of on shore shipping related activities. lt can be expected that,
given the strongly competitive setting in which maritime companies operate,
in the absence of pro-active intervention policies on the part of traditional
maritime countries, a cumulative process \\!ill occur.
The reasons behind the increasingly 'Ioose ties' between the nationality
of ownership, the register and the location of the management activities,
have become, thus, obvious.
Source: Lloyd's Register (2000
Graph 2: Composition of the v..-orld fleet by register
the actors involved". As far as the maritime industry of a specific country is concerned,
the milieu consists in the neh"iork of specialized services and related activities, knowhow
learning processes by local workers, fiscal and economie environment, advanced
communication systems (see Ojala, 1996 and Bergantino, 1998).
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