Naples Shipping Week

Naples Shipping Week

The Sea and the City 5.0 – Towards a shared planning of the port-city-coast-sea system

 Keynote speech, Kitack Lim, Secretary-General, IMO 

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to join you here today in this important port city at the start of Naples Shipping Week. It is set to be a stimulating and significant week.

Shipping's ability to transport large quantities of goods over vast distances in a cost-efficient manner unquestionably makes it the most effective mode of transport. 

Ports are naturally a critical part of this maritime trade. They play a significant role in helping to create conditions for increased employment, prosperity and stability through promoting maritime trade. Combined with all the other maritime sectors, they can be wealth creators, both on land and at sea.

The COVID pandemic and current geopolitical challenges have only served to increase the world's awareness of and reliance on shipping, ports and seafarers' invaluable role in global trade.

Underpinning international trade by sea is the comprehensive regulatory framework developed by IMO over more than seven decades, to ensure shipping's safety, security and efficiency and environmental performance.

Our 50 international conventions form a global regulatory framework that is fair and effective, universally adopted and universally implemented. 

IMO's regulatory framework covers all aspects of international shipping – including ship design, construction, equipment, manning, operation and disposal.  

As shipping evolves, IMO Member States along with the industry and partners throughout the UN system and beyond, work tirelessly to ensure this framework is constantly enhanced and strengthened.

This is of crucial importance as shipping undergoes substantial change in many diverse ways.

The imperative to tackle climate change is a major topic that is high on our agenda.

For example, we are working to adopt an upgraded GHG strategy in the middle of 2023, but we are also taking necessary steps to tackle other environmental issues, such as marine litter.

We must also ensure gender diversity in maritime, and we need to address the challenges and opportunities of automation and digitalization.

These are all very different strands, but they are equally important in strengthening IMO's objectives of ensuring the safety and security of shipping, the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships and the support for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The green imperative - and consequently IMO regulation - is helping drive innovation in ship design, propulsion, research and investment into alternative low and zero-emission fuels.

Ports will be crucial in providing the infrastructure to supply new fuels and to support digitalization for greater efficiency of shipping.

IMO has adopted mandatory measures for electronic data exchange between ships and ports and the 'maritime single window' for handling data within port environments.

IMO is currently considering a global project to accelerate the digital transformation in partner countries that will identify needs gaps and look into seafarer training requirements for the digital era.

Automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly part and parcel of daily operations for many in the shipping sector. Alongside this, we need to manage the risks of cyber security and we must ensure that seafarers' welfare is properly taken into account, just as we need to ensure that current and future seafarers are adequately trained to handle shifting technologies.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The crucial interface between ships and ports and coastal communities will be at the centre of your discussions this week.

Our collective future in maritime requires greater transparency, more sharing of data, better analysis of data and collaborative thinking.

By working together collaboratively and cooperatively, we can make shipping greener and more resilient.

This year's World Maritime theme is "new technologies for greener shipping" and this Thursday – which will be  World Maritime Day – IMO is hosting the IMO-United Nations Environment Programme-Norway Innovation Forum, aiming to promote inclusive innovation for decarbonization of the maritime sector.

In October, the Second IMO Symposium on low- and zero-carbon fuels for shipping will address how to ensure a just and inclusive transition towards low-carbon shipping.

These critical conversations will echo those you will have during this maritime week, since they have implications for ships, ports and maritime cities.

The green and digital transition in maritime is here. It gives us an opportunity to create a sector that binds us all together and we must embrace it. We need to come together to harness this transition for the benefit of all.

This is essential for sustainable development and to ensure we meet our global ambitions and goals to secure the needs of future generations.

Thank you.