The inauguration of the new premises for the Maritime Training Centre took place on Friday, 18th May, 2012, Limassol, Cyprus with the blessing of the Bishop of Limassol Athanasios and in the presence of municipal and state officials.

BSM, known in Cyprus until recently as Hanseatic, was established and has been operating on the island since 1972. It is an international group of shipping companies, which today manage more than 650 ships belonging to first class distinguished owners worldwide with managing offices in Limassol, Athens, Hamburg, India, Isle of Man, Newcastle, Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong. It employs 17.000 seafarers of different nationalities and about 1.100 people in the shipmanagement offices.

The old Maritime Training Centre which was operating for 29 years and its main purpose was the training of both local and foreign seafarers, had to be sacrificed for the construction of the Limassol Marina which will for sure help further in the cultural and economic development of the city of Limassol. This was also a good chance for the BSM group to modernise the facilities for the training of its officers and trainees and to enhance its training courses to the specific needs and requirements of today. The centre has the capacity of 100 trainees/officers at any given time and it’s the only school of its kind in Cyprus which offers maritime training programs and specialised programs for officers and cadet officers and demonstrates the commitment of the group for building up their own people with their own culture.

The company’s Maritime Training Centre is housed in half of the restored Trakasiol warehouses in the Old Port of Limassol. The reformation and restoration of these warehouses has shown how an old industrial building can be transformed into a spectacular modern building . The other half of the restored warehouses will house the Cultural Centre of Limassol Marina. A visit to the new Maritime Training Centre gives the visitors the feeling that they are in a truly modern ship with the seafarers’ bedrooms resembling like cabins, with entertainment and instruction rooms, an impressive mini – cinema, a restaurant, a kitchen and a large communal square open to the public.

This training centre along with the other training centres of the group which operate in Manila, India, Myanmar and smaller ones in other locations in Asia and Eastern Europe, continue to form a corner stone of the group’s shipmanagement operations and its success based on the quality of the officers and ratings supplied to its shipowner clients.