GENERAL STATEMENT BY
MR. ABDUL MUTALIB YUSOF, PERMANENT SECRETARY
MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
AT THE 28TH REGULAR SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
THE INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANISATION (IMO)
ON 25TH/26TH NOVEMBER 2013.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr. President
Mr. Secretary-General
Excellencies and Distinguished delegates,
1. On
behalf of the government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan
of Brunei Darussalam, we would like to thank the organisers at IMO for
inviting our delegation to this 28th Regular Session of the
General Assembly of the IMO. It is certainly a pleasure and privilege
for the Brunei Darussalam delegation to be here at this General Assembly
this week.
2. The
super Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines recently, has claimed the
lives of more than 4,000 people and left more than a million homeless,
with countless others still missing. We acknowlegde that the Philippines
is in fact, one of the world's largest supplier of international
seafarers, and that Typhoon Haiyan has struck at the heart of the
international seafarer community and global maritime industry. In this
regard, we wish to take this opportunity to offer our deepest
condolences and our heartfelt prayers go to the families of the victims,
the people and the government of the Republic of Philippines.
3. As stated by our former Minister of Communications during the 25th
Session of the IMO General Assembly, we wish to reiterate Brunei
Darussalam’s full commitment in upholding and furthering the noble
objectives of the IMO towards ensuring safe, secure and efficient
shipping on clean oceans. And we endorse this commitment through the
ratification of appropriate IMO Conventions critical to her shipping and
maritime activities.
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General and distinguished delegates.
4. Recognizing
the rising demand for energy worldwide and Asia’s continued growth,
there is never a more appropriate time to emphasize on the sustainable
development of world’s maritime transport sector. The world’s shipping
community needs to come together to optimize this opportunity, to
highlight that shipping and port industries are vital links in the
global supply chain. There are approximately 1.5 million seafarers
involved in providing services to today’s inter-dependent global
economy. Thus ensuring the continued development and future growth of
the world economy.
5. The
Seafarers play a very significant role in the growth of the maritime
sector and its industries. In this context, Brunei Darussalam
congratulates IMO and her fellow members on the entry-into-force of the
Manila Labour Convention 2006 (MLC 2006), where the rights and welfare
of our seafarers would be safeguarded and for quality ship owners as
well as for fair competition. Brunei Darussalam also reiterates that
attention be given in life-long learning, skills upgrading and career
progressions of the seafarers to attract more to join this sector.
Excellencies and delegates,
6.
Let me now take the opportunity to share some of national initiatives
to develop the ports and maritime industry sector. Firstly – the
Ministry of Communications is currently collaborating with affiliated
national agencies to introduce basic and intermediate maritime
engineering education qualifications. To cater the substantial national
oil and gas industry that we have today as well as other non-oil and gas
sectors, there is so much potential in maritime education industry to
be tapped on at the national level.
7.
Secondly – is our national strategic objective to establish a maritime
training centre or academy. This is one of our national efforts towards
economic diversification and to progressively move away from the oil and
gas industry to a transport services and logistics sector.
8.
Thirdly – we are currently restructuring the national policy and
regulatory framework for the ports and maritime industry sector in
Brunei Darussalam. The setting up of a single national authority for
Maritime and Ports is now in the pipeline and through such initiative,
we will continue our support to IMO's Conventions among others such as
Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL
Convention). This convention seeks to achieve efficient maritime
transport as possible, looking for smooth transit in ports for ships,
cargo, and passengers.
9.
Fourthly and lastly – on infrastructure development, our Primary
Commercial Port - the Muara Port, is currently undergoing major works on
the extension of the port’s container berth as well as the upgrading of
its ports facilities and services. These are among some of our
strategic objectives to achieve Excellence in communications for
enhancing national competitiveness by the year 2017.
Thank you for your attention.
