The European Commission has approved a €600 million Finnish aid scheme to help the maritime companies in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. The scheme was approved under the State aid Temporary Framework adopted by the Commission on 19 March 2020, as amended on 3 April and 8 May 2020.
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak and the travel restrictions that has brought, Port of Helsinki reported a serious impact upon its port business and decided to temporarily dismiss its entire personnel.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Finland informed that bans ferry passengers’ entry from 11 April until 13 May, in an effort to reduce the spread of the disease. Specifically, the border restrictions will be forced until further notice from the authorities.
The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA) and the Swedish Maritime Administration (Sjöfartsverket) inked a cooperation agreement for the design of the next generation of icebreakers. It is reported that the design of the icebreakers will be conducted as a joint project. However, the partners have only discussed about the design of the icebreakers and not about the possible construction of the icebreakers.
The University of Turku along with the shipbuilding company Meyer Turku, shake their hands and inked a strategic partnership in order to develop and boost education and research in the field of engineering.
Finland is the latest country to join the Cape Town Agreement concerning fishing vessel safety, in efforts to bring mandatory safety measures for fishing vessels of 24 m in length and over. The treaty will be enforced one year after at least 22 states, with an aggregate 3,600 fishing vessels of 24 meters in length and over operating on the high seas have expressed their consent to be bound by it.
Port of HaminaKotka recently shake hands with Rauanheimo and inked an agreement in order to expand the Mussalo Bulk Terminal. Namely, through this investment, Rauanheimo will further increase the terminal’s capacity and efficiency.
Finland and Germany submitted a study to the IMO’s Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR) sub-committee, in order to be revised during its session scheduled for February. This document presents results of a measurement campaign for the analysis of the impact of fuel oil quality on Black Carbon emissions. The results indicate that new blends of marine fuels with 0.50% sulphur content can contain a large percentage of aromatic compounds, which have a direct impact on Black Carbon emissions.
Finnish research firm VTT announced it developed a technology that solves challenges of emission-free hydrogen technology, combining devices that produce hydrogen from water and electricity from hydrogen into a single movable system that produces hydrogen with an efficiency as high as 80–90%.
Finland informed that the legislation on the delivery of waste from ships to ports will be updated. The aim is to improve the treatment and reception of waste in ports, which will reduce the generation of marine litter and consequently the discharge of plastic into the seas.
