An agreement between the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and
the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has been signed for the
parties to collaboratively improve safety and environmental standards in the
country’s ship-recycling industry.
A Memorandum of Understanding formalizing the cooperation between the two
was signed by Nicolaos Charalambous, Director, Technical Cooperation Division,
IMO and Md. Ashadul Islam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division of
the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Bangladesh, on April 10, 2014.
The agreement will see the IMO and Bangladesh jointly implement a project
entitled “Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling in Bangladesh – Phase
I”. With an annual gross tonnage capacity of more than 8.8 million, the
Bangladesh ship recycling industry is second only to neighboring India in terms
of volume.
The project, aimed at improving standards and sustainability within the
industry, will consist of five work packages, covering studies on economic and
environmental impacts and on the management of hazardous materials and wastes,
recommendations on strengthening the Government’s one-stop service (in which
all the various ministries with a responsibility for ship recycling – e.g. industries,
environment, labor, shipping – offer a single point of contact for related
matters), a review and upgrade of existing training courses and the development
of a detailed project document for a possible follow-up project to implement
the recommendations of phase I.
It will be executed by the Marine Environment Division of IMO, in
partnership with the Ministry of Industries of Bangladesh, over the next 18
months. The Bangladeshi ministry will coordinate input from the different
stakeholder ministries within the country, while IMO will also collaborate with
other relevant UN agencies including the International Labor Organization (ILO)
and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to ensure
successful delivery of the project.
The principal funding for the project will come from the Norwegian Agency
for Development Cooperation (Norad), while the Secretariat of the Basel,
Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS) will also support the project by
mobilizing some EU funding towards the work package related to the management
of hazardous materials, which will partly be implemented by BRS.
IMO, the Government of Bangladesh, Norad and BRS have been working
towards the establishment of this project for a number of years.
Source: marine link. 9 February 2015
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