The Paris MOU has introduced a New Inspection Regime (NIR) which shifts from a target of inspecting 25% of individual ships calling at each member state to a shared commitment to achieving full coverage inspection of all ships visiting ports and anchorage in the Paris MOU region.

A brief overview of the NIR is presented below.

1. Implementation
The NIR will replace the existing PSC regime on 1 January 2011.

2. Ship Risk Profile
The Ship Risk Profile will be based on the following criteria, using details of Inspections in the Paris MOU region during the last 3 years.
- Type of ship
- Age of ship
- Performance of the flag of ship (including undertaking Voluntary IMO member state Audit Scheme)
- Performance of the Recognized Organization (RO)
- Performance of the company responsible for ISM management
- Number of deficiencies
- Number of detentions
The Ship Risk Profile will be used to classify ships into Low Risk Ships (LRS) and High Risk Ships (HRS). If a ship is neither LRS nor HRS, it will be classified as a Standard Risk Ship (SRS).

3. Company performance
Company performance criteria is a new parameter that will be used as a target factor. The Paris MOU has established a formula which takes into consideration the deficiencies and detentions in the last 36 months of a company's fleet, based on the IMO company number, and compares it to the average of all vessels inspected in the Paris MOU to the performance level. The companies will be ranked into very low, low, medium and high categories.


(To be continued)