UNCTAD: FLAGS OF CONVENIENCE LEAD GLOBAL FLEET GROWTH

UNCTAD: FLAGS OF CONVENIENCE LEAD GLOBAL FLEET GROWTH    Open registries, also known as flags of convenience, led the growth in the worldwide commercial fleet in 2001, according to a report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
   UNCTAD said in its annual “Review of Maritime Transport” report that the worldwide fleet expanded by 2.1 percent in 2001, reaching 825.6 million deadweight tons at the beginning of 2002.
   “The biggest fleet expansion occurred in open-registry countries, where it was up 10.0 million deadweight tons to 402.4 million deadweight tons, or 48.7 percent of the world fleet in 2001 (vs. 48.5 percent the previous year),” the United Nations agency reported.
   UNCTAD noted that security and environmental concerns have been raised recently in connection with the open-registry fleet. Open registry flags are those of Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas, Malta, Cyprus, the Marshall Islands, Bermuda, St. Vincent, Antigua and Barbuda and other countries that have special registers for ships mainly owned by shipowners of third countries.
   The fleet registered with developed market-economy countries accounted for 25.1 percent of the world fleet in early 2002.
   In its annual report, UNCTAD said that oil tankers and dry bulk carriers made up 70.3 percent of the total world fleet in early 2002. The container ship fleet rose by 11.4 percent in 2001, to 77.1 million deadweight tons, representing 9.3 percent of the world fleet.
   Meanwhile, the volume of world seaborne trade contracted in 2001, for the first time in 16 years. The 1 percent fall in seaborne trade, from 5.89 billion to 5.83 billion tons in 2001, was “mainly attributable to the economic downturn in the U.S., Japan and to a lesser extent Europe,” UNCTAD said. For 2002 the UNCTAD report predicted that global maritime trade growth was to remain flat.