Finland closer to ratify IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention

Finland’s parliament approved a bill that could lead to it ratifying IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC).

Markus Helavuori, a technical officer in IMO’s secretariat, told BWTT that a second round of discussions will be needed in the Finnish parliament before the proposal goes to the country’s president, Sauli Niinistö, for signature. Only then will Finland deposit its instrument of ratification with IMO, formally adding its name and tonnage to BWMC’s total. Once that is done, “we will announce it,” a secretariat spokeswoman said.

BWTT reported that Mr Helavuori told a conference organised by the UK Chamber of Shipping that BWMC ratifications now totalled 34.79 per cent and that Finland would contribute 0.14 per cent to the global percentage. This has led to some on Twitter offering a figure of 34.93 per cent as being the current percentage of ratified tonnage, implying that a further 0.07 per cent would now be sufficient to take it over the line.

But until Finland formally ratifies the convention, it would not be accurate to quote that figure, Mr Gunton said. “In any case,” he added, “since IMO now recalculates the percentage at the end of each month, by the time Finland does ratify it is quite likely that the total of all the other flag states will have changed – either up or down.”

Source: http://www.ballastwatermanagement.co.uk/news/view,finland-edges-closer-to-ratification-after-parliament-votes_42587.htm