IMO has called on all shipping stakeholders, including shipowners and recognized organizations, to provide input to the Experience Building Phase (EBP) designed to see just how the BWM Convention is working. BIMCO informs that shipowners can now submit such data directly to the World Maritime University.
Effective from September 2017, the BWM Convention requires ships to manage their ballast water to help prevent the spread of invasive species as well as potentially harmful pathogens.
After the BWM Convention entered into force, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) immediately launched an Experience-Building-Phase (EBP) to monitor the implementation. This is a data-gathering and analysis process designed to identify aspects of the Convention’s implementation that are working as required and to further enhance the aspects that are not working. The analysis covers a wide range of issues, including from operation of systems and the role of the crew through to testing and sampling.
The IMO has commissioned the World Maritime University (WMU) to supervise the data gathering and analysis as required by the exercise, and they are inviting BIMCO members to submit data and information that will be treated in the strictest confidence.
It is noted that, at present, shipowners are invited to submit their reports to the flag State who duly submit the report. However, this new initiative will see the WMU, on behalf of the IMO Secretariat, collecting complementary data for the EBP.
As such, BIMCO members are now able to submit more detailed “complementary data” directly to WMU if preferred, rather than using the stakeholder interface via the flag State,
…BIMCO informed.
