IMO focus on less administrative burdens
SHIPPING: This year’s first session of the IMO Council established a steering group to reduce administrative burdens. A steering group with a wide range of participants is to push forward the process, inter alia through consultations with all relevant stakeholders
Against this background, the steering group is to present a number of recommendations indicating what administrative regulations can be left out and how to otherwise reduce the paper work.
Denmark has worked persistently to place administrative burdens on the international agenda. Denmark holds the view that administrative burdens put strains on seafarers and shipowners to an unnecessary extent.
Therefore, Denmark presented an inventory at the Council meeting that identifies all the documentation and information requirements stipulated in current mandatory IMO instruments. The inventory has been made in cooperation with the WMU. The Council thanked Denmark for the inventory and recognized that it is a considerable contribution to the future work making IMO’s regulations simpler.
Denmark also took the opportunity to present the preliminary results of two studies of seafarers’ and shipowners’ experience with the administrative burdens imposed on the industry. The Danish Maritime Authority has made the studies in cooperation with the consulting firm COWI.
At the Council meeting, the Secretary-General also presented the reform process launched to make IMO more efficient and to minimize its costs. More specific measures will be presented at the next Council meeting to be held in November 2012. Finally, a number of other issues were considered, including member State audits, the IMO budget and the World Maritime Day.
A more detailed summary of the meeting HERE
Source: DMA
