Denmark fastest-growing nation when it comes to national ship registers

The Danish flag is flying proudly over more and more ships and the number continues to grow

Stephen Gadd

Jun 18, 2018

New figures reveal that the changes in the law introduced by the Danish government have had a beneficial effect on the amount of merchant shipping registered under the national flag.

Denmark’s register has seen an extremely healthy growth rate of almost 25 percent over the last 12 months – figures that have not been seen since the 1990s.

The next-fastest growing register was Portugual’s at around 23, followed some way behind by Indonesia at nearly 10 percent and the UK and Japan at almost the same level, reports the Danish shipping organisation Danske Rederier.

Lifting regulatory burdens works
“It shows that our policies are working and that relaxing regulatory burdens, digitalisation, and generally strengthening the framework and service level for this area have had a definite effect on growth,” said the business minister, Brian Mikkelsen.

At the beginning of this year, Parliament removed a registration tax that was seen as a hindrance to the competitiveness of the Danish flag.

“It’s very positive that a number of shipowners have chosen to flag more ships in,” said Anne H Steffensen, the CEO of Danske Rederier.

“This development is especially due to the visionary policy in Denmark of removing the registration tax on second-hand ships,” added Steffensen.

More ships on the way
A further 11 ships are heading for the Danish registry and nine of these are new and come from Torm. Additionally, 18 out of 25 shipowners asked by Danske Rederier have indicated that they intend to transfer more ships to the Danish flag over the next three years.

The Danish ship register now has 20 million gross registered tonnes on its books distributed over 700 vessels.

Denmark is now the world’s 12th-largest flag state and number four in Europe.