Wednesday, 03 March 2010 13:29
11th edition of the Asia-Pacific Maritime (APM) Conference and Exhibition will be held in Singapore on March 24-26 this year. To build a better productive market for maritime industry players, including those in the Philippines, the three-day event will have conferences and seminars covering ship financing, maritime law, marine machinery, electronics and communications, tanker shipping and trade and green shipping.
The delegates and guests will include maritime businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, and buyers from all around the globe. Twenty-seven industry organizations from 12 countries are supporting the event with the theme “Shipping in Asia Today, Preparing for the Future. Hennie van Schoor, Director of Business Performance for Asia Pacific of Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping line, will inaugurate the conference. He will present his views on the economic crisis and provide insight into where the shipping industry should be headed.
Monday, 01 March 2010 13:34
UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) calls for reducing emissions from ships to a 20 percent fall. Efthimios Mitropoulos, the Secretary General of IMO announced that new rules will be imp
lemented for new vessels from rich and emerging nation to cut down emissions to the required level. He asked the owners to adopt measures to improve propulsion so that it could reduce the discharge of greenhouse gases significantly. Some emerging nations probably will resist these proposals because they want developed nations to act first, said Mitropoulos. U.S. and Europe were responsible for more than half of the emissions in the atmosphere. “I consider that it would create a very, very dangerous precedent if we were to move away from the level playing field,” Mitropoulos said yesterday in an interview in London. “It would introduce double standards on an industry that has to be regulated on an equal basis all over the world.” International shipping contributed about 2.7 percent of global emissions in 2007, according to a July report from the IMO. That share may rise as high as 18 percent by 2050 as trade grows and land-based emissions fall because of greenhouse-gas limits, it said. The IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee will consider endorsing the new rules next month at a meeting in London. Further approval would be required as early as October after industry consultation, and the rules could come into force as early as February 2012. 
