Representatives from the five Maritime Technologies Cooperation Centres (MTCCs) convened at IMO this week to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for inter-MTCC cooperation.
The agreement, signed during IMO’s Technical Committee meeting, commits the signatories to enhance knowledge sharing to expedite the adoption of decarbonization technologies across five regions: Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific.
At the signing, IMO’s Dr. Jose Matheickal stated, “Collaboration between the five MTCCs will help bridge the knowledge and technology gaps between the global north and global south.“
Carefully selected to become centres of excellence for their regions, the MTCCs focus on technical co-operation, capacity building and technology transfer. Supported by IMO and EU, the MTCCs act as regional focal points for a wide range of activities to:
- improve compliance with existing and future international energy-efficiency regulations
- help participating countries develop national energy-efficiency policies and measures for their maritime sectors
- promote uptake of low-carbon technologies and operations in maritime transport
- establish voluntary pilot data-collection and reporting systems to feed back into the global regulatory process.
The signatories were John Odira Omingo for MTCC Africa, Prof. Shi Xin for MTCC Asia, Professor Stephen Joseph for MTCC Caribbean, Professor Víctor Luna Barahona for MTCC Latin America, and Jens Kruger for MTCC Pacific.
