Asian inspections increase

Tokyo MOU members have agreed to increase inspections on ships calling at their ports from 50% to 75%. The 17 members include Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.

Also approved was a new qualitative criteria for members and amendments to the Port State Control Manual to bring it in line with IMO resolutions. Member states will be able to use a new database (Asia-Pacific Computerised Information System) to log and retrieve information on ship inspections for targeting of ships for future inspections.