Singapore Government Press Release
Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts,
MITA Building, 140 Hill Street, 2^nd Storey, Singapore 179369
Tel: 837-9666

Mr Patrick Griggs, President of the Comite Maritime International (CMI)

Mr Chandran Arul, Chairman of the CMI 2001 Organising Committee

Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am pleased to be invited to address this Conference and warmly welcome all of you to Singapore.

Established in 1897, Comite Maritime International (CMI) is, I believe, the oldest international organisation in the maritime field. It was the first international organisation concerned exclusively with maritime law and related commercial practices. It is thus fitting that the first Conference of the CMI in Asia is being held in Singapore – a country with a long maritime tradition and an aim to to become a major International Maritime Centre.

Singapore’s long maritime tradition and its importance as a maritime nation did not come about by chance. Our geo-strategic location and our openness to the rest of the world have contributed tremendously to our success as a maritime nation. Lying astride the Indian and Pacific Oceans, most of the major maritime trading routes pass through Singapore. More importantly, our approach of maintaining free and open economic links with the outside world has contributed to our current relative prosperity.

As early as the 5^th Century, Singapore was the site of a town known as Temasek which by the second half of the 13^th Century was a city-port familiar to Arab seafarers who were making use of the Singapore Straits in their voyages between the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea. During the 14^th Century, Chinese seafarers discovered the passageway now well known as the Keppel Harbour Channel. The waterway emerged as a well-defined route in the 16^th Century when Portuguese mariners travelled frequently through the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea on voyages between Cochin in India and Macau. When Sir Stamford Raffles came to Singapore in 1819, a trading station for the East India Company was established and Singapore gained increasing importance as the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea which continues to this day.

Following from its long maritime tradition, Singapore is well on its way to becoming a major international maritime centre. The Business Times of 2 Feb 2001 reported, inter alia, that:

" Singapore looks set to retain its title as the world’s busiest port in terms of shipping tonnage – which it has held for 15 consecutive year – after a record handling of over 900 millions gross tons (gt) in 2000."

At any one time there are more than 800 ships in Singapore’s port. It is the focal point for some 400 shipping lines with links to 740 ports in 130 countries worldwide. It is a major transhipment hub for Asia and a leading bunkering port in the world.

Apart from the port, other activities which have contributed to our role an international maritime centre include a good legal infrastructure, shipbuilding and repair, shipping agencies, shipping lines, cruise and freight forwarding. To complement these sectors, there is available in Singapore a wide range of services which include ship management, ship broking, ship financing and marine insurance.

Let me elaborate on the legal infrastructure.The number of lawyers doing shipping law in Singapore is growing to cope with increasing volume of maritime work. In a recent Euromoney Legal Media Group survey, Singapore was listed as having 3 shipping lawyers who featured in a list of the world's top 20 shipping and maritime lawyers, reflecting the growing prominence of the jurisdiction. Their clients include international and local banks, shipbuilders and operators. In addition to local law firms, 5 major international law firms with good shipping expertise have established offices in Singapore.

A local law firm with a large shipping and admiralty practice recently became the first Asian law firm to set up an office in Greece (Piraeus). It also has offices in Dubai, Bangkok and Hamburg. This firm and other major local shipping law firms offer a full range of shipping legal services, e.g. dispute resolution, ship registration, ship financing, ship construction, ship repair contracts, ship arrest, collision, salvage, charterparty disputes, bills of lading, towage disputes, shipbuilding and ship purchase disputes, general average, oil pollution , bunker supply disputes, etc.

Recent reforms in the legal services sector in Singapore have resulted in a number of local law firms forming joint law ventures and formal law alliances and strategic alliances with foreign law firms. Foreign law firms have entered the Singapore legal market which was previously reserved only for Singapore law firms. The objective of such alliances and joint ventures is to make Singapore comparable to traditional legal service providers such as those in United Kingdom and the United States. With more competition, the quality of legal services would be enhanced. These reforms may eventually lead to a gradual globalisation of Singapore maritime law practice.

Arbitration has an important role in the shipping field. The Singapore International Arbitration Centre ("the SIAC"), in existence for the last 10 years, plays an active role in this area. Shipping and maritime arbitration has accounted for 36% of SIAC’s caseload for the last 10 years. The SIAC has a distinguished local and international Panel of Accredited Arbitrators on shipping and maritime matters which can be tapped for resolution of disputes on such matters. It provides full facilities and services for the conduct of international arbitration proceedings in Singapore. Furthermore, parties arbitrating at the SIAC can now make use of the advanced audio-visual and state-of-the-art facilities of the Supreme Court’s Technology Courts and Chambers. Foreign parties or witnesses who are unable to personally attend proceedings at the SIAC can have access to live video-conferencing facilities. The use of technology in the resolution of disputes will increase the efficiency in the conduct of the arbitral proceedings and result in considerable cost-savings.

I note that the problem of piracy will be discussed at this Conference. This is timely because the menace of piracy is rearing its ugly head again. Recent media and expert reports show an increase in pirate activity in many areas.

Apart from sea robberies, the more organised of the pirate criminals have moved to hijacking a whole ship with its cargo, changing its marking and selling the cargo. Piracy cases have occurred in many parts of the world, but let me mention the situation in this region.

According to the latest annual report of the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB) , there were 469 attacks or attempted attacks on ships at sea, at anchor or in port worldwide. The IMB classifies piracy very broadly as the boarding of vessels by persons who intend to rob or commit other crimes. The figures are supposed to be the highest in 10 years. The IMB report also highlighted that in this region, the waters surrounding Indonesia and the Straits of Malacca were the most prone to attacks by pirates in 2000.

The piracy problem concerns all those in the shipping and related industries, law enforcement officials, law practitioners, those involved in administering the law and the countries around the region. All of us need to co-operate to contain the menace. The shipowners, the ship officers, the crew, the law enforcement officials, the navies and each of the countries, especially those in whose waters such acts occur, need to play their part.

The Singapore authorities have been vigilant in ensuring there has not been an incident of piracy in Singapore territorial waters in the last ten years. But that alone is not enough. The Singapore Police Coast Guard also has bilateral arrangements with their Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts for coordinated patrols in the Straits of Singapore. A similar arrangement exists between Indonesia and Malaysia for the Straits of Malacca. In the interests of the safety of maritime traffic, the countries in the region have become more vigilant about the piracy problem, but more needs to be done. Cooperation to deal with the issue must be enhanced and enforcement needs to be stepped up. The outcome of your discussions at this Conference can help forward that objective.

Another issue that this Conference is set to examine is that of maritime insurance. I understand that you will consider the work of an International Working Group that undertook a comprehensive review of the most pertinent issues, including the question of harmonisation of maritime insurance law.

As part of Singapore’s efforts to become a maritime hub, we continually strive to attract world-class insurance players who can offer products and services at the best rate terms and security. We are also working to enhance our regulatory framework for maritime insurance by making it more conducive for specialist classes of underwriters like Protection and Indemnity clubs. Our continual market liberalisation initiatives which began last year reflect our commitment and desire to become an insurance centre of world-class standards. In this connection, your deliberations on maritime insurance issues will be of great interest to Singapore.

CMI has a long tradition of influencing the development of international maritime law. Piracy and the rights of passengers carried by sea are two of the important subjects which this Conference will discuss. It seems to me that the development of a model national law on piracy, by ensuring greater uniformity, will help to ensure that there are sanctions for acts of piracy committed outside the jurisdiction of affected states. With regard to the rights of passengers carried by sea, it is important that issues on passenger liability be looked into for the protection of an increasing number of cruise passengers as Singapore promotes itself as a cruise hub.

I am confident that this Conference will uphold CMI’s long tradition and once again make significant contributions to future development of maritime law not only in the field of piracy and the rights of passengers carried by sea but also transport law and liability, general average, marine insurance and salvage. As an international maritime and legal services centre, Singapore and her legal fraternity welcome good progress and developments in these important areas of maritime law.

In conclusion, I hope that participants will be able to use this Conference as a forum to share and exchange useful ideas and information on the various legal and practical issues in the maritime sector. I wish you an interesting and fruitful Conference. To all our foreign visitors, I hope that you will take some time off your deliberations to savour the many delights of Singapore and perhaps the region as well.

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