Sea Asia confirms its place as SE Asia's largest maritime event

Underscoring Singapore’s role as a leading international maritime centre Sea Asia 2015 saw an attendance of 16,185 participants from 85 different countries.

Chris Hayman, chairman of Seatrade commented: “This year’s Sea Asia was our biggest and best event yet. The exhibition was 30% bigger than last year’s event and spread across two floors for the first time due to unprecedented demand from exhibitors.”

Sea Asia 2015 also provide a forum for discussion and debate among industry leaders across the spectrum of the maritime and offshore marine industries.

“No doubt Singapore plays a focal point in bringing together the best, the biggest and the brightest in the Global Maritime sphere,” said Michael Duck, UBM Asia executive vice president and director of Sea Asia 2015.

“The importance of Sea Asia is well illustrated by the number of industry leaders who were in town for this ‘don’t miss’ event.”

This year included a keynote address by IMO secretary-general Koji Sekimizu at the Offshore Marine Forum.

Conference participation was up 29% with 900 delegates, compared to 700 at the previous edition.

Singapore Maritime Foundation chairman Michael Chia said that the success of Sea Asia 2015 also highlights the increasingly dominant role Singapore, and the Asia region, plays in the global maritime and offshore industries. “Asia is the driving force behind the global maritime and offshore industries. In 2014, Asia accounted for almost 80% of global container throughput and five of the top ten shipping centres are based in this region.”

With the growth of Asian maritime there is a need to focus on developing future leaders.

“This is another key focus of Sea Asia and it was great to see close to 200 students join us at the event as part of the Sea Asia Youth Tour,” Chia said.

The team behind Sea Asia is already gearing up for an even bigger event in 2017.

“Sea Asia is firmly established as the leading forum for discussion and debate in the global maritime industry. This year’s event was a real success and we’re looking forward to building on this in the next edition,” Duck said.