GIBRALTAR's location at the crossroads of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and between Europe and Africa, has made it a strategic commercial and maritime centre. It is set to become an increasingly active centre for ship registration.
Having been dormant for some years, Gibraltar's ship registry is now fully operational. Together with the Isle of Man, Bermuda and the Cayman...
SINCE the Republic of Panama enacted Law 8 of its constitution in 1925, it has offered the shipping community a registry that is backed by a network of consulates in the major shipping centres of the world. These include Tokyo, Piraeus, Seoul, Hong Kong, London, New York, and Singapore, and help simplify registration procedures, avoid tax liabilities imposed on profits arising...
THE Finnish government has recently passed a bill aimed at bringing the nationality requirements of vessels to be entered in the Finnish register up-to-date with EU law and legal practice. The intention is that the new legislation should be enforced as soon as possible. Since parliament has not yet considered the bill, the date when the new legislation will enter force is not...
THE Liberian Bureau of Maritime Affairs has enjoyed a flurry of activity in the first six months of 1999. Strong tonnage gains have further established the Liberian register as one of the world's largest, with nineteen vessels of 402,540 gt joining the flag in February alone. Coupled with twenty-seven vessels of 816,265 gt in March, and fifteen vessels of 379,059 gt in April,...
JANUARY 1, 2000 marked a significant milestone in the history of International Registries, Inc (IRI). After fifty years of administering the Liberian programme under a franchise arrangement with the Liberian government, IRI turned over its responsibility for the register to the government's designated agent.
Under the stewardship of IRI and its corporate predecessors, the...
ON June 26, 2000, the Law for Reactivation of the National Merchant Marine (Law for Reactivation) was published in Venezuela. This short piece of legislation is having a great impact on domestic shipping business. Its provisions complement the changes made in 1998 to the Law for Navigation, as well as to the Law for the Protection and Development of the Merchant Marine,...
THE maritime sector in Nigeria is undergoing a general overhaul. Last year the transport minister set up a committee designed to spearhead reform of the sector as a whole. Part of the committee's assignment is to review and update the Merchant Shipping Act 1962, which is based on the British Merchant Shipping Act 1894 and the regulations made pursuant thereto. Until the...
WHILE all around them have been consolidating, ship registers appear to have been breeding. What was once the domain of a handful of traditional registers is now a bustling marketplace of national, second, open and even third registers. Amid such competition, how can you tell the good registers from the not-so-good?
Ship registers have been criticised for a variety of reasons...
AFTER many years of work and discussion by the authorities, including the state ministry responsible for shipping and the Turkish Chamber of Shipping, the Turkish International Ships' Registry became operational last year.
During the preparation stages, the Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS) was used as an example. In reality, however, the Turkish second register is...
IN the summer of 2000, Turkey introduced the Turkish International Ship Registry (TISR), its second ship register. Prior to its establishment, there had been a lobby from Turkish shipowners for a more advantageous registration scheme which would offer an alternative to offshore flagging, which had traditionally been effected in Malta. Yet, despite high hopes that the TISR...
IN November 2000 the Russian Ministry of Transport approved the Rules for the Registration of Ships and Titles to Them in Merchant Sea Ports. All seagoing vessels flying the flag of the Russian Federation, except sport and leisure craft and vessels of less than 80 tons, should be registered with the State Register of Ships. Russia belongs to a group of countries where ship...
THE entry of shipping companies into the stock exchange presents some peculiarities which, in the opinion of the legislators, created the necessity for qualitative criteria safeguarding the protection and complete and proper briefing of investors.
In the case of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), the authorities took into consideration the fact that Greece is a rather small...
UNDER Korean law, any Korean vessel of twenty gross tons or more, propelled by an engine, must be entered in the vessel registry. Even though ownership is one of the items to be described in the registry, purchase and acquisition of ownership of a vessel does not require registration in order for it to be effective.
Transfer of ownership may become effective only by an...
GIBRALTAR is a Category 1 Red Ensign Group Register and a prominent registry within the Red Ensign Group. The extensive facilities on offer include full registration, bareboat registration, provisional registration and the registration of ships under construction. Geographically, Gibraltar is well-situated at the entrance to the Mediterranean and is also classed as a European...
THE criteria governing who can own a Maltese registered vessel has recently changed. The changes were effected by Legal Notice 2003, entitled Merchant Shipping (Ships Eligible for Registration) Regulations 2003, which was published on February 25 this year. The legal notice, which contains the amendments, was the first task of the newly constituted Malta Maritime Legislative...
