New Year Message from the Director General 4 January 2024 Tweet To the Members Shizuo Takahashi, Director General   Happy new year to you all.   Firstly, I would like to express our deepest gratitude for your support during the preceding year. We would greatly appreciate your continued support this year.   Although the pandemic subsided and there were signs in 2023 of recovery to pre-pandemic social environment, the business environment surrounding the Japanese and global shipping industry became unstable in the second half of the year. This instability was fueled by the impact of global inflation and, rising interest rates particularly in Europe and the United States, the protracted Russia-Ukraine issue, and the exacerbated situation in the Middle East.   Insurance results for the 2023 policy year remain relatively strong in the Japan P&I Club. However, there was one pool claim in ocean-going owner’s entries in the first half of the year, and one claim exceeding JPY 300 million for Naiko Class entries (Japanese coastal vessels) in the second. Continuous vigilance is essential to monitor the ongoing developments of large claims from the preceding business year, as well as those anticipated in the future.   A top priority is being given to strengthen our financial foundation in order to provide stable, insurance services to our Members. Unfortunately, due to the progress of claims from the 2020 and 2021 policy years for ocean-going owners’ entries, insurance results significantly deteriorated. Consequently, in March 2023, we had to levy unbudgeted supplementary calls of 25% for each of the 2020 and 2021 policy years. Thanks to your support, we successfully recovered our reserves to JPY 27.4 billion for the business year 2022. While Standard & Poor's credit rating remained unchanged at ‘BBB (Outlook: Stable)’, the assessment of capital adequacy improved from ‘Strong (A)’ to ‘Very Strong (AA)’, and the financial risk profile assessment