IMO Highlights Importance of Shipping

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) Council has decided to go with “Shipping: indispensable to the world” as the World Maritime Day theme for 2016.

Addressing the IMO Council, meeting for its 28th Extraordinary Session at IMO Headquarters in London, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu said the theme would provide an opportunity to focus on the critical link between shipping and global society and to raise awareness of the relevance of the role of IMO as the global regulatory body for international shipping.

“Today, around 90% of world trade is carried by the international shipping industry. Without shipping the import and export of goods on the scale necessary to sustain the modern world would not be possible,” Sekimizu said.

There are more than 50,000 merchant ships trading internationally, transporting every kind of cargo. The world fleet is registered in over 150 nations and manned by more than a million seafarers.

The World Maritime Day theme provides a focus for year-round activities. The event takes place in the last week of September.