On Friday December 13^th the conference for the presentation of the co-funded project “MARIS – Marine Career Information System” was held successfully at “Posidonia” hotel in Limassol.

The Marine Career Information System – MARIS was implemented under the INTERREG V-A partnership program Greece–Cyprus 2014-2020, and co-funded by the Shipping Deputy Ministry and the European Union, as well as the Shipping Ministry of Greece and aims to develop an online application, which will be an approved complete career database for use by seafarers and shipping companies.

The expected results from the immediate use of the application are, among others, the ability of the registered seafarers to access the content of their digital folder as well as to be able to update it with their trainings and shipping service, and to make changes to their personal data registered in the system.

The Shipping Deputy Minister, Mrs. Natasa Pilides, referred to the rapid development of the shipping sector in Cyprus and the need for significant increase of technical staff with maritime experience and service that will to staff the ships and shipping companies ashore.

The Shipping Deputy Ministry spares no effort in presenting the significant career opportunities of the Cyprus Maritime sector to schools and career exhibitions. Additionally, it aims to highlight the importance of the basic ingredient of Maritime Cyprus, the human element. Besides the improvement of the education for the current and future seafarers, emphasis is also given in providing every possible mean το facilitate their contact with their future employers, the shipping companies.

The Shipping Deputy Minister also stated that the interest of young people to shipping has increased in the latest years, but there are still plenty of opportunities to get informed about the unparalleled and abundant career prospects in maritime professions. Closing, she stated that the Shipping Deputy Ministry promotes tangibly the digital development of shipping so that modern technology can ease our seafarers’ efforts to enter and thrive within the shipping industry.