I am writing this issue’s message from the historic, exciting and vibrant city of Shanghai where we have been holding IUMI’s second Asia Forum.

The Asia Forum is a relatively new invention for IUMI. We introduced it to reflect the global market share of marine insurance in Asia - which grew from 23% to 29% in the period between 2008 and 2017.

Asia has consequently become a key focus area of development for IUMI. We opened the Asia Hub in Hong Kong in 2016 and we held the first IUMI Asia Forum in Singapore in 2018.

China itself has grown strongly in that period and is now home for just over 10% of the world’s marine insurance business. China became full members of IUMI in 2015 and it was their member association, the Shanghai Institute of Marine Insurance, who kindly offered to host the first ever IUMI conference in Shanghai.

The Asia Forum has been described as a ‘mini IUMI’. It has a different format and a different audience to our main conference and formal Council meeting which takes place each September. As well as traditional international attendees, it also aims to attract a more local, regional attendance - perhaps also a younger audience. And unlike the main conference, the attendees stretch well beyond the boundaries of the predominantly underwriting community who join our main conference each September. Our membership globally is very important to us, they are the heart and soul of our organisation, and we will continue to develop and deliver an extensive package of high quality and relevant services for them. This made us develop a balanced strategy to ensure both enhanced services for existing members, and to pay more attention to growth areas in Asia, Africa and Latin America where relevant and exciting new developments need our attention.

The Asia Forum is targeted at practitioners in all areas of the marine insurance, broking and related service sectors.

The Asia Forum took as its common theme “New trends in marine insurance”. This banner encouraged speakers and delegates to think about regional issues and more global topics affecting the marine insurance sector

Secretary General, Lars Lange, and I were also delighted to welcome the Myanmar delegation to the Asia Forum. Myanmar is the first country to become an Associate Member of IUMI.

To complete a busy week, the IUMI Executive Committee met in Shanghai for its normal May meeting; and Lars Lange and I dropped by the IUMI Asia Hub in Hong Kong.

Thanks go to both SIMI and HKFI for hosting us during our visits.