The maiden of the Maritime and Shipping Awards, the sole Awards recognizing the Ghanaian shipping industry, has been held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

The awards ceremony which was held last Friday March 31, was organized by the organizers of National Aviation Awards, Ninetyeightz Events to reward institutions, companies and individuals who have contributed immensely towards the growth of the country’s maritime and shipping industries.

The award identifies and publicly recognizes outstanding performers, as well as contributors to the country’s maritime industry, at the institutional, enterprise and individual levels.

The awards ceremony which was organized in collaboration with some of the maritime industry’s principal regulators and facilitation institutions attracted close to 500 of the region's elite shipping and maritime professionals.

Some of the organization honoured at the ceremony include McDan Shipping, Transglobal logistics, Kanship Ghana limited, Maersk line Ghana, Consolidated and Shipping Agencies Ltd (Conship).

Others are Apex Shipping Commercial Company Ltd, Antrak, Siladum Limited, Westblue Consulting, Damco logistics, UT logistics, Redsea Maritime Services and Oil and Marine Agencies.

The rest are Agilent Maritime Service, Zeal Environment, B & FT, Graphic Communications, GT Bank, Access Bank Ghana Limited, Star Assurance and Total logistics.

Speaking at the event, the chief executive and events director of Ninetyeightz Events, Bergis Kojo Frimpong, said the awards “seek to create a much needed platform for all stakeholders in the maritime industry to network and share ideas as to how they can improve as individual entities and also an industry.”

He said following the success Aviation Awards held last year at the Müvenpick Ambassadorial Hotel, “we have been inspired with the positive feedback and deem it expedient in our little stride to keep identifying the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy that continue to immensely contribute towards the development of our dear nation Ghana yet remain unsung heroes”.

Ghana's discovery of oil in commercial quantity some few years ago coupled with the already existing conducive socio-eco-politico-cultural business environment has entirely changed, redirected and propelled our economic landscape and added more value to the name GHANA globally, thanks to you all seated here today, who are all key industry players.