On 12 May 2003, the Paris MOU announced that the new provisions of the Paris MOU (Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control) agreed last year will come into effect on 22 July 2003. Ship owners and ship management companies managing ships entering ports in the Paris MOU region are requested to pay due attention and instruct the subject ships accordingly.

A summary of the new provisions is as follows.
1. Mandatory Expanded inspection
(Expanding the mandatory inspection for aged oil talkers, aged chemical/gas carriers, aged bulk carriers or aged passenger ships)
2. Mandatory inspection
(Any ship with a target factor greater than 50 will be inspected if it is at least 1 months since the last inspection in the Paris MOU region.)
3. Refusal of access for certain ships
(A ship registered to a flag on the Black List will be refused access to ports in the Paris MOU region taking into account the number of detentions since 22 January 2002.)
4. Recording of Charterers
(Port State inspectors will record the charterer of a ship carrying liquid or solid bulk cargoes.)
5. VDRs
(Confirming the proper functioning of voyage data recorders)

Regarding the details of the new provisions, such as the applicable ships, the necessity of notification in advance, etc., please refer to the attached Press Release or the Website of the Paris MOU(www.parismou.org). The black list of flags will be posted on the Website of Paris MOU shortly and the Target Factor of each ship can also be calculated on the Website.

For any other questions about the these matters, please contact:

NIPPON KAIJI KYOKAI(ClassNK)
Survey Department, Administration Center, Head Office
Address: 4-7 Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8567, Japan
Tel.: +81-3-5226-2027
Fax: +81-3-5226-2029
E-mail: svd@classnk.or.jp

Attachment: Press release issued by Paris MOU (12 May 2003)