【Ta Kung Pao News】According to provisions of port state control (PSC) established according to willingness of all the members in international maritime organization (IMO), executive body of Paris memorandum of understanding, specially taking the charge of quality inspection for ships passing in and out of ports in European regions, published a newest black and white list, as well as performance ranking list of certification organizations for flag states a few days ago. As statistics shows, China ranks the second following the first one of Bermuda in white list of the first ten flag states with excellent performance. All the rest 8 states with the same reputation are western well-developed shipping states. Korea ranks the first in black list of first ten states with inferior performance.
It is worth mentioning that among the first ten certification organizations with good compliment selected by coordinating with white list, China Classification Society (CCS) ranks the tenth, which is very difficult to achieve. However, Taiwan’s “China Corporation Register of Shipping” ranks the tenth in the list of last ten organizations with bad performance, which makes people feel amazed. In addition, in the same ranking list, there are four ones belonging to certification agency or organization of Panama for the long run unexpectedly, which is very abnormal.
Korea Ranks the First in Black List
General Secretary of Paris memorandum of understanding organization, Shufeili indicated that ranking disclosure of flag states, certification authorities and classification societies is a “beneficial and active” impetus to promote more high quality ships during declaration of this list and billboard.
Shufeili said that list and billboard had proved its function and timeliness with the purpose to encourage flag state to take active action, so as to improve the importance of ship quality and work performance. Taking Panama as an example especially, Shufeili also indicated that Panama is a “frequent caller” in black list; In recent years, they have changed policy and strengthen management, so as to be listed in grey list, and ultimate goal is to be listed in white list.
In order to strive for good performance and retrieve cognition and impression of ship-owner, executive authority of memorandum of understanding has ever processed bilateral talks with marine bureau of Panama, listened to opinions and exchanged, but with no special measure aiming at ships with Panama flag.
America and Panama are listed in Grey List
The announcement for black and white list of Paris memorandum of understanding is published in July annually; Most of the 23 countries listed in black list, including the last 10 countries, Korea, Libya, Tonga, Bulgaria, Albania and Sierra Leone, etc., are already listed in the list of Year 2009.
However, the first three countries listed in list of 39 flag countries with good performance are Bermuda, China and Denmark successively, France is the forth and UK ranks the fifth one. As for the 19 flag countries listed in grey list, with no good and bad performance, Panama, America and so on states are included.
In the last ten ones with bad performance of certification organizations, Albania classification society, American international registration of ship (IRS) and Bulgaria ship registration rank top three respectively.
In the first ten ones with good performance of certification organizations, all of them are the members of international classification society; While only Japan marine association and China classification society in Asia are listed in the first ten, the rest are all European developed countries in shipping industry.
Improve Data Transparency of Ship Team
As of Jan, 1 of the next year, executive authority of memorandum of understanding will introduce new inspection regime (NIR). Shufeili indicates that even NIR is an absolutely different concept，it is still a quality control project for operators and manipulators, which is expected by most law enforcement officials. New regime will include comment to performance of ship-owners’ company through quality, and promise to reward companies with good performance once inspection period is prolonged, however these companies shall retain integral financial data and business performance, and increase the transparency of important data for ship teams.
He said that inspection decrease will be a popular award, which depends on performance.
Executive authority of memorandum of understanding has formulated very transparent regime that ships can be divided into high, average and low risk, the three levels; Special attention will be paid for the ships with high risk, which will be inspected every six months, award is to prolong the standard ship inspection period to 12 months; While the ships with low risk can even prolong the period to 36 months.