IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim joined Ministers responsible for shipping from various EU States and other countries to discuss the future of shipping, at a conference in Valletta, Malta (28 March).
Speaking at the High Level Ministerial Stakeholder Conference on Maritime Affairs, Mr. Lim highlighted IMO’s key role as the global regulator for international shipping (Click for full speech). He emphasized the importance of the industry for future sustainable development around the world, and that the key to this will be the roadmap, agreed at IMO’s MEPC 70 meeting last October, to consider and develop a comprehensive IMO Strategy for the reduction of GHG emissions from ships.
Mr. Lim welcomed the support for a global approach, through IMO, to regulating international shipping contained in the Valletta Declaration, adopted by ministers during the meeting. The Declaration identifies three key themes: competitiveness, digitalisation, and decarbonisation and reduction of air emissions.
The event took place under Malta’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and attendees included European Commissioner Violeta Bulc – responsible for maritime transport.
Following
Tuesday’s meeting, Secretary-General Lim also took the opportunity to address future
leaders of the maritime world – students at the IMO International Maritime Law
Institute in Malta (IMLI) (29 March), in which he hailed the Institute’s record
of providing a steady influx of highly trained legal professionals. They have
been, and will continue to be, instrumental in enacting appropriate domestic
legislation in countries around the world in order to implement and enforce IMO
treaties that govern almost every facet of the shipping industry – from the drawing
board to the scrapyard.