Themis Papadopoulos, ceo and owner of Interorient Navigation, was unanimously elected as new president of the Cyprus Shipping Chamber at the body’s agm earlier this month.

Papadopoulos succeeds Eugen Adami of Mastermind Shipmanagement, who occupied the presidency of the CSC - the island’s main resident shipping association with 170 members - since 2009.

In his first statement as president, the Papadopoulos said his main aim for the Chamber was ‘to work very closely with the Cyprus Government, the House of Representatives and all the Chamber associates, in order to ensure that Cyprus maintains and increases its attractiveness both in terms of a high quality and safety conscious Registry, as well as a competitive and business-friendly base of operation for shipping and shipping related companies.’

Themis Papadopoulos took over from his father Adonis as ceo of Interorient in 2004. With offices in Hamburg, Manila, Riga and St Petersburg, the group operates a fleet of modern double-hull product tankers and employs some 300 shore-based employees and 3,000 seafarers. Adonis Papadopoulos, together with the late Klaus Oldendorff, was a prime mover behind the setting up of the CSC (then called the Cyprus Shipping Council) in 1989, and served as its founder president.