Editorial

Although the latest report by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on port state control can be considered as good news for the Maltese shipping register, it shows too that much work remains to be done to get an even better placing for Malta.

The report still puts Malta in the black list of sub-standard ships, but Malta flagged ships are now classified as posing a "medium risk" compared to a "medium to high risk" in the previous year's report. Malta in fact ranks 19th on the blacklist.

The detention percentage of inspected Maltese ships last year was 9.48, an excess over the average of just 0.39 per cent. In the year before it had been 2.32 per cent.

The shipping register is important for Malta. It now totals 28 million tons, making it the fifth largest in the world after Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas and Greece. This is perhaps the only area where Malta is big in absolute terms.

Ship registration forms an important component of Malta's package as a maritime and an international service centre. Should Malta and Cyprus join the European Union, the bloc would become the largest grouping of ship registries, including also Greece and the UK.

The report by the Paris MOU is compiled over a three-year rolling period, which means that problems encountered in the past would take some time to disappear from the statistics, and improvements would also take some time to filter down.

Nonetheless, the latest figures appear to vindicate the efforts made by the Merchant Shipping Directorate of the Malta Maritime Authority to improve the standing of the Maltese merchant flag.

For some time now, the rule has been for no ships over 25 years to be included in the register. Ships of 20 years and older are given stringent inspections before or within one month of provisional registration, and there are tough inspections too for vessels that are 15 to 20 years old.

The Maritime Authority has been improving the administration of its register. The authority now has 20 inspectors based here and about 100 abroad.

The developments are in line with a maritime action plan which has seen Malta beefing up its legislation, particularly the Merchant Shipping Act, followed by ratification of a number of conventions of the International Maritime Organisation and the International Labour Organisation. The latest ratification was of ILO Convention 147 on crewmen's working conditions. Indeed, Malta's signature of a protocol updating that convention brought that protocol into force.

The maritime action plan places particular emphasis on capacity building. Capacity building does not mean that Malta's priority is to see its register grow, but that it would have the capacity to continue to enforce international shipping standards.

Although Malta is classified as a flag of convenience because it has marketed itself abroad to non-Maltese companies or ship owners, it must show that its inspectors offer no convenience to ship owners and that no one should be allowed to tarnish its name.

While the results of the latest MOU are encouraging, the fact remains that Malta is still on the blacklist. Every effort should continue to be made therefore for the island's flag to move out of this list.