Africa's maritime experts to launch master plan this week
Top officials of Africa’s registrars of ships and maritime experts will converge in Mombasa, Kenya this week to launch a master plan for the continent's re-entry into the global shipping industry, WorldStage News reports.
The inaugural African maritime authorities meeting, which will be attended by the Chief Executive Officers from Nigeria and over 30 countries, is sequel to a resolution reached in Dalian, China, in October 2012 at a workshop organized by the Chinese Government for Heads of Maritime Administrations.
The conference, which will be declared opened by Kenya’s Minister for Transport Amos Kimunya will hold between 3 and 5 October 2012.
It is being organised by Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA), South Africa Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) and African Ship Owners Association (ASA) with facilitation by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The conference is a response to the continents unimpressive share of global investments in the maritime industry, despite its significant contribution to global maritime cargo and the renewed desire for strategic take-off in the maritime sector as captured in the “African Maritime Transport Charter”.
Apart from drawing up a Master Plan on reviving Africa’s Maritime Agenda, the meeting will also call for the strengthening of cooperation at regional and continental levels through regular consultations where best practices can be shared among the stakeholders.
The conference will provide an interactive platform for discussion, sharing of experience and cross-fertilization of ideas on how best to enable a paradigm shift on the future of African maritime industry.
It will also provide an unprecedented opportunity for maritime authorities to execute joint articulation and implementation of a continental approach in developing among others an overall investment capacity, maritime governance structures and participation in ocean transport within the continent.
The deliberations will focus on among other issues, maritime policy and regulation, development of country maritime profiles and integrated technical cooperation, as well as cross cutting concerns of cargo owners and ship owners.
Focus will also centre on ships construction yards, oil and gas exploration, port operations, marine environment, marine tourism and funding of maritime investments in Africa.
That workshop enjoined participants to hold joint regular meetings as a forum to advance Africa’s maritime agenda as envisaged in the African Maritime Transport Charter.
The meeting is also bolstered by the African Union's 1st Conference of African Ministers responsible for maritime related affairs, which was held back-to-back with the 4th African cross-sectional maritime experts’ workshop at its headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, in order to formulate the 2050 African Integrated Maritime Strategy.
Furthermore, the African Ship-Owners Summit held in Accra Ghana 10-12 April, 2012 recommended a unified approach to address the African Maritime Sector in order to achieve a strategic take-off to deliberate on structures for collaboration in the maritime industry at a continental level, and also deliberate on structures for collaboration in the maritime industry at a continental level.
The Summit thus resolved that a conference for heads of African maritime administrations and ship registrars be held.
Also, players in the maritime industry in Africa are seeking to establish a continental fund in which member countries can draw from to develop their individual assets and the African Merchant fleet.
The director general of Kenya Maritime Authority Mrs Nancy Karigithu acknowledged that acquisition of maritime assets was too costly for local banks to fully sponsor.
She stressed: “Most assets are capital intensive and most local banks fund at most 60 per cent of a water asset and still seek other land-based assets as collateral.”
Karigithu said that the establishment of an African maritime development bank similar to the fund for West Africa initiated in Nigeria would encourage more investments in the sector.
The establishment and administration of the development bank is expected to feature prominently during the three-day conference for maritime administrations and ship registrars starting October 3, 2012 at the Sarova Whitesands hotel in Mombasa.
An estimated 130 delegates are expected to attend the conference to be jointly hosted by the Kenya Maritime Authority,
The African maritime industry particularly along the Indian Ocean has been greatly affected by piracy that has raised the rates of shipping and deprived the region of additional income from cruise shipping and fishing.
"The war against the Al-Shabaab has had a very positive impact because we have not had a ship hijacked for almost a year though there has been the input of the privately-contracted armed security personnel on board ships,” she said.
The conference is also expected to set the foundation for regional and continental links among players in the sector as well as strategise how to implement harmonised maritime transport policies.