Maritime technology cooperation centre opens in Panama

The centres, in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific regions, will act as regional focal points for activities including: improving compliance with existing and future international energy-efficiency regulations; promoting uptake of low-carbon technologies and operations in maritime transport, and establishing voluntary pilot data-collection and reporting systems to feed back into the global regulatory process.

Jose Matheickal, head of technical cooperation and major projects at IMO’s Marine Environment Protection division, said: “The global network of MTCCs will promote understanding and knowledge of technologies and operations to improve energy efficiency in the maritime sector and will help to navigate shipping into a low-carbon future.”

The launch on 13 March was followed by a regional workshop updating participants on the global MTCC network project and sharing experiences of implementing IMO’s energy efficiency regulation.