The International
Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Government of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh have signed a landmark agreement to work together to 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 Mr
Nicolaos Charalambous, Director, Technical Cooperation Division, IMO and Mr Md.
Ashadul Islam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division of the
Ministry of Finance of the Government of Bangladesh, on 10 April 2014.
IMO and Bangladesh will
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 one of the
world’s most important, 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 Labour 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. It demonstrates a major commitment from the
Government of Bangladesh to improve safety and environmental standards within
this vital industry.
*Basel Convention on the
Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal,
1989; Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, 1998; Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, 2001.
Source:
maritime executive. 10 April 2014
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