This report comes from the Ad Hoc Steering Group for Reducing Administrative Requirements (SG-RAR), set up by the IMO in 2012. It contains the group’s findings and conclusions on the best ways to lessen administrative burdens associated with mandatory IMO conventions and codes.
It also contains the results and analysis of the first-ever public consultation undertaken by the IMO between May and November 2013.
Key findings of the report include calls for:
· Electronic certificates and similar documents to have equal weight as original paper certificates.
· An electronic ‘single window’ information exchange system should be introduced to fulfil multiple reporting requirements.
· Shipowners, administrations, classification societies and commercial parties, etc to accept electronic, or software solutions, as a suitable replacement for paper documentation.
· Identifying and reducing possible administrative burdens before approving new or existing IMO regulations.
Lars Robert Pedersen, BIMCO’s deputy secretary general, commented on the report: “If the recommendations of this report are put into practice, they will establish an enhanced and modern platform for simplifying the daily work on board ships as well as ashore.
“Shipping needs to be able to use the latest technology for its reporting – and recognition of electronic certificates ought to be a prerequisite in this day and age. BIMCO therefore urges the IMO Council to make firm decisions on the basis of the recommendations and remove unnecessary administrative burdens,” he said.
BIMCO has also announced that it is to develop a standard term sheet to assist the shipping industry in the creation of ship financing documentation.
The aim of developing this document will be to offer lenders and borrowers a comprehensive and simple standard, which would become well-known – and could replace the many individually drafted term sheets developed by banks and other financial institutions.
As a result, this standard would have the potential to facilitate the provision of ship financing, increase predictability and reduce cost.
A term sheet usually contains a number of provisions for a term loan facility, revolving credit facility, or a combination of both and further provisions on particular issues, such as currency, interest, fees, guarantee, security, prepayment and cancellation.
Angus Frew, BIMCO secretary general explained: “This decision is an important step towards developing a standard term sheet that will simplify ship financing documentation for our members and users of BIMCO documents, saving them time and money.
“We think that both lenders and borrowers will see the benefits of having this kind of standard available. BIMCO will now set up a dedicated sub-committee to draft the term sheet.
“Our goal is always to provide clearly drafted and balanced documents for industry to use and so the sub-committee will include both bank and shipowner representatives and their lawyers. We expect the first meeting of the sub-committee to be in spring 2015,” he said.