Foreword
2
Quietly confident Welcome to our new catalogue, your first port of call for all things
Another reason why the downturn’s impact has been less
maritime in Holland. Once again we have assembled the finest
harsh on our industry has been that governments are investing
companies, products and services for your perusal, offering a
in infrastructure as one of the ways to climb out of recession.
one-stop-shop to those looking for both quality and value.
The money being pumped into hydraulic engineering & dredging projects and new harbours, for example, has provided snippets of
A great deal of the proverbial water has certainly flown under the
good news in a year otherwise dominated by gloomy headlines.
bridge since we wrote the forward for last year’s catalogue. It was clear then that a storm was brewing but none of us expected it
Our message to the market is that this is definitely not a time to
to be quite so severe. Nonetheless, we remain quietly confident
be short-sighted and order ships or equipment from countries or
about the future in Holland because our industry is not based on
companies that are not specialised in their field. Any short-term
the cargo ship sector.
financial savings will be quickly swallowed in downtime later as a consequence of owning substandard products.
As you will read in these pages, the Dutch are specialised in more complex vessels, ranging from offshore and superyachts to
Combined voices
dredgers and Navy ships. These areas are not so directly linked to
It is now almost two years since the Holland Marine Equipment
the world economy, although they have of course been affected
Association and the Association of Dutch Shipyards (VNSI) united
by the current malaise.
under the umbrella of the Holland Shipbuilding Association. This cooperation has been successful: Our combined voices have a much greater impact on policy and opinion with the Dutch