London: Influential industry bodies including Intercargo and Intertanko have endorsed the Korean Register of Shipping's initiative to raise quality standards throughout the industry at the class society's European Committee meeting held in London on 9th and 10th June. Top of the agenda was the maintenance and furtherance of quality standards throughout the KR classed fleet. A package of new measures unveiled at the meeting included full analysis of all port state control (PSC) detentions to determine the possible cause of systematic failures (including structural, documentation, age and flag-related issues) and the feeding-back of this information to help prevent future failures.
Vessel casualties would also be subjected to a similar rigorous analysis and KR would also use its impending IACS chairmanship to further its quality objectives and to raise standards throughout the industry. Other issues discussed at the meeting included technical and future development, greenhouse gasses, and the IACS early warning system.
Intercargo and Intertanko are full members of KR's European Committee and these industry organisations (alongside Bimco and OCIMF who also attended the meeting) and are the drivers of the annual tripartite meetings - arranged between owners, shipyards and class societies - which have the central aim of improving vessel quality and safety.
"Our European Committee provides valuable industry input during its meetings and throughout the year," said KR chairman and ceo, Oh Kong-gyun. "I am very encouraged to see so many important industry bodies and commercial companies endorse our activities and our approach to quality and safety. We have achieved a huge amount in recent years and a large part of that success can be attributed to the support we enjoy from the industry through our European Committee."
KR's current classed fleet stands at an all-time high of 32m gt and its order-book puts it on-track to reach 45m gt by 2010. [13/06/08]
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