A shipping agent is a person who deals with the transactions of a ship in every port that the ship visits or docks. In simple terms, it is a shipping agent who with a local expert acts as a representative of the owner of the ship and carries out all essential duties and obligations required by the crew of the ship.
It is the ship agent who is entrusted with taking care of every need and requirement of the crew like getting local currency, getting the mail, any repairmen in case the ship requires major repairing, refilling the food and water containers and many other such duties.
Also along with the above mentioned duties it is also a shipping agent’s responsibility that dues are paid and discharged especially when it comes to customs. The payment of the dues can also extend to those working on the ship on a contract basis and whose contract might have come to end after reaching that particular port. Keeping all these details in mind, a shipping agent cannot allow any scope of neglecting his duty.
Ship owners can allow themselves to be free of all the details that are required to be processed each and every time a ship makes a port because of the presence of shipping agents. In the absence of shipping agents, a ship owner will have to be the one to rush from one port to another, sacross numerou countries trying to solve every problem and fit-in every new up-gradation to the ship.