ICS slams market distortion on shipbuilding

Speaking to government trade negotiators at a workshop in Paris earlier this week, the chamber noted that despite being in existence for more than fifty years, the working party had made little progress, with the last round of negotiations suspended several years ago.

Simon Bennett, director of policy, ICS, noted: “The perennial challenge facing ship owners is overcapacity, aided and abetted by government subsidies and support measures that encourage shipyards to produce ships that are surplus to requirements. If governments are serious about helping the shipping industry deliver on the United Nations sustainable development goals, the OECD needs to reboot efforts to have a global agreement on the elimination of market distorting measures from shipbuilding.”

ICS also reviewed progress in improving shipping’s environmental performance. On ballast waster, Bennett argued that ship owners should only install treatment systems that have been approved in accordance with the revised and more robust type-approval standards adopted by IMO in 2016, even though their use is not yet mandatory, in order to ensure that it would be fit for purpose in all operating conditions worldwide.

On the 2020 global sulphur in fuel cap, ICS explained that in conjunction with other ship owner associations it is working on a proposal to IMO that the carriage of non-compliant bunker fuels should be banned in order to ensure fair competition.

On the development by IMO of a strategy for the reduction of CO2 emissions, Bennett said: “The vision of ICS is zero CO2 emissions as soon as possible using alternative fuels and new propulsion technologies. But so long as ships are dependent on fossils fuels, IMO member states need to be both politically and technically realistic about what can achieved in the short term if this is to be compatible with the legitimate concerns of emerging economies about the impacts on trade and their sustainable development.”