News this week centered around a meeting held by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office on Sunday. Due to the importance of the industry for a variety of reasons in the country, largely relating to the economy (in terms of employment and valuable imports for example), ship recycling has been declared a vital and viable sector that needs to get on its feet once again.
Officials concerned were directed to be careful about protecting the environment around shipyards, but all of this seems to be promising news towards a possible reopening within the next few months or so.
The IMO has promised some 3 million Euros for the purpose of training local workers in the process of ship recycling in order to improve safety standards, but the Shipbreaking Platform immediately sent a letter to the Bangladeshi PM petitioning her not to accept this.
The Platform called for her only to accept the promised fund if the IMO also commits to invest in the infrastructural development in the yards, which it claims are still some way from fulfilling acceptable safety criteria.
It may still be a period of time before the full effects of the week's meetings and activities come to fruition, but at last it seems that there may be a breakthrough at hand with the PM of Bangladesh finally decreeing the industry an important one, necessary for progress and improvement within the country.
Source:
Steel Guru (Sourced from GMS Weekly). Tuesday, 15 Feb 2011
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