Shipping and ports are like Siamese twins: neither can live without the other. The trouble is that due to rapid technical progress in shipbuilding it has become difficult to provide the shipping industry with both in the right proportion and at the same time.

Last weeks' dollar crisis which ended with the devaluation of the dollar emphasised once more the need for a reform of the international monetary system. It also brought to the open the necessity to reorganise the EEC monetary relations. The floating of pound and lira seems to support this case.