White-listed states are sailing close to the wind

This May hit the maritime and port industry with a lot of multinational forums, exhibitions and seminars. There was Annual Eurocew Meeting among them. The speakers were General manager Nippon Kaiji Kyokai Naoki Saito, Managing Director and CEO of HMS Assistance S.A. Piotr Masny, Executive Director of the Association “Maritime Chamber of Ukraine” Ilya Tikhonov.

One of the topics discussed at the Meeting was IMO’s “White list”. Most recently, IMO’s Sub-Committee on Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping (HTW 6) concluded that the “White list” would be cut if requirements to report information were strictly enforced. The main reason for that is the fact that not every country placed in the “White List” submitted a report information to Sub-Committee.

STCW-95 non-compliant Member States are often described as being on a “Black list”. These countries could be the Philippines, Panama, UK, Bahamas, South Africa, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden. Eurocew Meeting participants discussed several scenarios the fleet of a “Black list” states can face with.

For example, ships flagged by a black-listed country can be denied entry to a port, inspected intensely, or detained when attempting to enter a port.

Seafarers with a Certificate of Competency (CoC) from a black-listed nation could be denied a Certificate of Equivalency (CoE) and rejected for work abroad “White list” flagged ships.

Seafarer’s training and sea time abroad black-listed vessels flagged could be rejected for a CoC from a “White list” country.

In summary, shipowners of the white-listed countries will take losses if they cannot hold their positions. Among them is Panama, the world’s largest flag state. At the same time, shipowners will look for other white-listed states to do their maritime business without hindrance.