IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim attended the IHMA harbour masters congress. During his speech, he highlighted the crucial role of harbour masters in ensuring the safe arrival and departure of ships and making the ship-port interface work efficiently.
This year’s congress theme was “Ports: Essential for Safe, Efficient and Secure Global Trade”. Under this, Mr. Lim said that ports are vital in implementing existing and new safety and security measures, from the shore side, from vessel traffic services, to aids to navigation, and to ensure safe operations in busy ports.
He specifically said:
Ships begin and end their voyages in ports. So all of you here, whether you are a harbour master or otherwise involved in the port industry, you all have an important role in ensuring that shipping is safe, efficient, secure, sustainable and environmentally-sound.
However, he also addressed the importance of ports in ensuring compliance with the upcoming IMO environmental laws. Namely, IMO Sec-Gen said that the organization adopted the initial strategy for reducing GHG emissions from international shipping, aiming at least a 50% cut in emissions from shipping by 2050.
[smlsubform prepend=”GET THE SAFETY4SEA IN YOUR INBOX!” showname=false emailtxt=”” emailholder=”Enter your email address” showsubmit=true submittxt=”Submit” jsthanks=false thankyou=”Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list”]
In this plan, ports will be essential to support the achievement of these ambitious targets by ensuring efficient supply chain management or providing sustainable, clean, on-shore power supply in ports.
In order to help ports achieve this, IMO has collaborated with the International Association of Ports and Harbors, under the IMO-run GloMEEP to develop and deliver training on how to assess air emissions in ports and how to develop strategies to address emissions from different sources.
Moreover, Kitack Lim noted that today we are experiencing the so called fourth industrial revolution.
It is highly likely that big data, robotics and automation will usher fundamental changes and enable fully autonomous ports and unmanned semi-autonomous ships. It is vital for the port industry to share their experience.
Keeping up with new developments IMO is carrying out a scoping exercise into the use of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships, or ‘MASS’, to explore the regulatory aspects of autonomous vessels.
Additionally, IMO conducted two port-related events in June. The first was about covering electronic exchange of information and single window systems, as well as best practices for improving coordination in ports.
The second focused on the exchange of best practices on port security and law enforcement.