Cyprus: A Shipping Center From early on, since 1963, Cyprus has recognized the political, economic and social significance and importance of shipping. Since then, applying the correct policy, the individual governments attracted to the island several traders operating in the maritime sector. Cyprus has developed into a full-developed shipping center with authority and credibility and high levels of safety. The strategic geographical location of Cyprus, which is at the crossroads of three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa), played an important role in the success of international shipping center. Cyprus offers many advantages such as the legal system, a fairly good public service, good working relations, an extremely high level of professionalism in the legal and accountancy, an excellent banking and telecommunications and air links to all major destinations. These are all powerful incentive for businessmen to establish companies in Cyprus. Cyprus is also offering a number of financial and economic benefits which make many European operators build topical companies with full developed offices. Major advantages are the existence of sufficient domestic labor and low manufacturing and operating costs.. Cyprus is one of the largest centers worldwide ship management with almost 60 ship management companies. This ranks among the first 5 countries worldwide with the largest number of ship management companies. Many of these companies controlled by Cypriot and European interests. Forty thousand of people are working as seafarers and five thousand of them are European people.