<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the COVID-19 pandemic takes hold, it is important for the world\u2019s governments to fully understand that around 90% of global trade is transported by commercial shipping, which moves the world\u2019s food, energy and raw materials, as well as manufactured goods and components \u2013 including vital medical supplies and many products sold in supermarkets, items that are necessary (due to complex supply chains) for the preservation of many jobs in manufacturing \u2013 without which modern society simply cannot function,\u201d the ICS and ITF wrote in a letter to the Secretary-Generals of various United Nations\u2019 agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this time of global crisis, it is more important than ever to keep supply chains open and maritime trade and transport moving,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In particular, this means keeping the world\u2019s ports open for vessel calls by commercial ships, and facilitating crew changes and the movement of ships\u2019 crews with as few obstacles as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to the letter, each month around 100,000 seafarers need to be changed over in order to comply with relevant international maritime regulations, governing safe working hours and crew welfare, so that they can continue to transport global trade safely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The letter continues:\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe therefore wish to emphasise the vital need for the world\u2019s professional merchant seafarers to be granted appropriate exemptions from any national travel restrictions, when joining or leaving their ships, in order to keep the world\u2019s maritime supply chains functioning.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn view of their vital role during the global pandemic, we suggest that professional seafarers, regardless of nationality, should be treated as any other international \u2018key workers\u2019, such as airline crew and medical personnel.\u00a0 As such, they should be afforded special consideration and, notwithstanding the need to comply with emergency health protocols, treated with pragmatism and understanding when seeking to travel to and from their ships.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe therefore call on your organisations to highlight the critical importance of this issue with the governments of your member states.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe request, as a matter of urgency, that this topic be added to the agenda of appropriate high level meetings, and that national authorities in your organisations\u2019 member states should be encouraged to engage immediately with their national shipowners\u2019 association and national seafarers\u2019 union, in order to find rapid solutions to this serious problem which otherwise risks impeding global efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The International Chamber Shipping represents the world\u2019s national shipowners\u2019 associations representing over 80% of the world\u2019s merchant shipping tonnage, while the International Transport Workers\u2019 Federation (ITF) speaks on behalf of the approximately two million seafarers who operate the world\u2019s internationally-trading commercial ships.<\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cAs the COVID-19 pandemic takes hold, it is important for the world\u2019s governments to fully understand that around 90% of global trade is transported by commercial shipping, which moves the world\u2019s food, energy and raw materials, as well as manufactured goods and components \u2013 including vital medical supplies and many products sold in supermarkets, items …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3074,1192,3535,1063,570,3534,3384,61,3123],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-call","tag-crew","tag-facilitate","tag-ics","tag-itf","tag-nations","tag-open","tag-ports","tag-united"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/6541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}