Circular

  1 The Assembly of the International Maritime Organization adopted on 5 December 2003, by resolution A.962(23), the IMO Guidelines on Ship Recycling with the aim of providing guidance to shipowners, ship recycling facilities, flag and recycling States and other involved stakeholders as to "best practice", which takes into account the ship recycling process throughout the life cycle of the ship. This resolution invited Governments to take urgent action to apply the Guidelines, including the dissemination thereof to the shipping and ship recycling industries.

  2 The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), at its fifty-third session (18 to 22 July 2005), having considered the relevant recommendations of the first session of the Joint ILO/IMO/BC Working Group on Ship Scrapping, agreed, inter alia, to invite:

• .1 ship recycling States to:

  • .1 make publicly available information about the point of contact for the competent authorities responsible for issues related to ship recycling; and

  • .2 submit to the Organization any available information on their ship recycling activities;

• .2 Governments and all involved stakeholders to provide information to the Organization on:

  • .1 any experience gained in the implementation of the IMO Guidelines on Ship Recycling; and

  • .2 any technical co-operation activities or other relevant initiatives already launched or planned so that these activities could be taken into account in future technical co-operation programmes of the Organization.

  3 With the view to promoting the implementation of the IMO Guidelines on Ship Recycling, any information submitted to the Organization, in accordance with the above paragraph, will be posted on the IMO's ship recycling web page (http:/www.imo.org - select "Marine Environment/Ship recycling") and it will be brought to the attention of the MEPC, as appropriate.

  4 Member Governments are invited to bring this circular to the attention of all parties concerned.