We have seen more positive developments this week as the vaccine rollout speeds up across the country. This is obviously good news, but for the shipping sector, which is inherently a global industry governments must start to prioritise seafarers for vaccination otherwise we could see issues with global supply chains slowing down.

Away from the pandemic we have seen some very worrying news from Northern Ireland this week and the authorities there have suspended checks on goods for a few days. The new trading relationship between the UK and the EU, and the issues with the Northern Irish border was always going to take time to bed in, but we hope the issues can be resolved quickly.

At the Chamber momentum is building towards our first ever Virtual Conference and I am delighted to announce that the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will now be speaking at the event. We know how busy he is and how many competing priorities he has, so we are incredibly grateful he has given up his time to talk about the great success of the UK shipping sector and the challenges we have all faced over the past 12 months. His speech will be part of the morning speeches including one from HRH The Princess Royal, our President John Denholm and Shipping Minister Robert Courts. We have also confirmed that ICS Secretary General Guy Platten will be the moderator for our International Trade Panel in the afternoon, a huge thanks to Guy for agreeing to do this.

We have also released our Digital Programme for the event. This gives delegates an overview of the day and details of how to get the best out of the platform we are using and we hope everyone will find it incredibly helpful.

We are also delighted to confirm Bureau Veritas as a Gold Sponsor for the event. A huge thanks to them and all our sponsors for supporting the conference and with 400 people from over 30 countries already signed up we know next Thursday will be a great day. There is still time to book your ticket and you can do that here.

Finally this week we have been informed by the Department for Transport that nominations are now open for the 2022 New Years Honours list. If you know of anyone who deserves recognition or anyone who has done some outstanding work in the last year, do contact Shirley Rice (srice@ukchamberofshipping.com) at the Chamber and she will be able to send you all the relevant forms.