Practical training on board ships for port State control officers, supported by class-based lectures, has boosted knowledge amongst participants from eight countries during a training course in Muscat and Sohar, Oman (19 February -2 March). The course was hosted by the Riyadh Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Gulf Region (Riyadh MoU) and jointly organized by IMO, the Tokyo MoU, the Riyadh MoU and the Ministry of Transport of Oman. The focus of the course was on port State control procedures and the latest revisions to relevant IMO conventions, specifically the SOLAS, MARPOL, Load Lines and STCW treaties.
The activity was organized for participants from Colombia, the Congo, Kenya, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Sudan, Tunisia and Turkey, representing the Viña del Mar Agreement and the Abuja, Indian Ocean, Riyadh, Mediterranean, Caribbean and Black Sea MoUs.
IMO’s Hakan Demirlioglu helped facilitate the course and took the opportunity to visit the Riyadh MoU Information Centre in order to progress the implementation of the PSC data exchange protocol, which was signed in 2011. All nine PSC regimes have signed a data exchange protocol with IMO in order to submit PSC inspection data on behalf of their members. Six of these protocols are already live, while the Riyadh MoU is completing its arrangements to become a data provider.