DHAKA: The government has signed a landmark agreement with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 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 Md. Ashadul Islam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance and Nicolaos Charalambous, Director, Technical Cooperation Division, IMO, on 10 April 2014, reports the Maritime Executive.
Bangladesh and IMO 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.
BDST: 0953 HRS, APR 02, 2014
