Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is on a formal visit in Russia, where he met the top officials of the Transport Ministry: Maxim Sokolov, Minister of Transport; Victor Olersky, Deputy Minister of Transport – Head of the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency; Vitaly Klyuyev, Director of the Transport Ministry's Department of State Policy for Maritime and River Transport.
Since RF Transport Ministry is the leading organisation ensuring Russia’s participation in IMO, the Minister emphasized that Russia, a permanent Category A member of the IMO Council, takes an active part in the decision-making related to international shipping and never stops developing proposals on improving IMO documents and on introduction of new IMO instruments to meet the recent changes in the shipping industry.
The meeting considered global issues of IMO activities including GHG emissions and low-sulphur fuel requirements that come into effect from 2020.
The participants of the meeting brought up issues of administrative load on ship crews, the problem of enormous ship documentation and its alternative – introduction of electronic documentation.
When speaking at the meeting, the Minister specially marked the work of Russian experts in the IMO Secretariat and emphasized that Russia is a sea power with a centuries-long maritime history and a superior system of seafarers training. The Minister assured IMO Secretary-General of Russia’s readiness to provide IMO with highly skilled specialists.
Besides, the agenda of the meeting included the detailed discussion of the coming 30th session of IMO Assembly which is to be attended by the Minister.
IMO Secretary-General thanked the Minister for the invitation to visit the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation in Moscow and for an open dialogue.
The parties expressed their hope for further fruitful cooperation in favour of the maritime industry.
Mr Kitack Lim also visited the office of Russia’s leading shipping company Sovcomflot to meet its management and to get acquainted with its activities.
Today, on 18 September 2017, Mr Kitack is taking part in the work of the Tokyo MoU Committee and business conference in Vladivostok.
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