The IMO Subcommittee on Flag State Implementation (FSI) held its 19th session from 21 to 25 February 2011 at the IMO headquarters in London. BIMCO representatives from the Marine Department attended the weeklong meeting.

The heavy agenda for the FSI 19 included the following items:
*Responsibilities of Governments and measures to encourage flag State compliance
*Mandatory reports under MARPOL
*Casualty statistics and investigations
*Harmonization of port State control activities
*PSC Guidelines on seafarers’ working hours and PSC guidelines in relation to the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006
*Development of guidelines on port State control under the 2004 BWM Convention
*Review of the Guidelines for inspection of anti-fouling systems on ships
*Comprehensive analysis of difficulties encountered in the implementation of IMO instruments
*Review of the Survey Guidelines under the HSSC
*Consideration of IACS Unified Interpretations
*Review of the Code for the Implementation of Mandatory IMO Instruments
*Development of a Code for Recognized Organizations
*Measures to ensure the safety of persons rescued at sea

A submission co-sponsored by ICS, ISF, BIMCO, INTERTANKO and INTERCARGO basically only providing information to the FSI 19 related to the availability of the updated Shipping Industry Flag State Performance Table, 2010, caused a lengthy debate as the procedures, especially for assessing Flag State Performance, were challenged as somewhat being unfair by some of the attending IMO Members States.

The FSI 19 meeting arrangements included the establishment of three Working Groups (WG) and one Drafting Group (DG) as follows:
*Working Group 1 on Casualty Analysis
*Working Group 2 on the Harmonization of Port State Control Activities
*Working Group 3 on the Development of a Code for Recognized Organizations and making the Code for the Implementation of Mandatory IMO instruments and the auditing mandatory
*Drafting Group on the Review of the Survey Guidelines under the HSSC, and the Code for the Implementation of Mandatory IMO Instruments

All the above mentioned groups made progress on their given task and terms of  reference, and it is expected that the outcome in the form of draft reports to the FSI 19 plenary session will be debated and most likely approved during this final day of the weeklong FSI 19 meeting. However, not all tasks given to the working groups were able to be concluded at this session, and some items will have to be deferred to the next FSI meeting in 2012 or will be dealt with by correspondence groups.
Members will receive a full report about the proceeding at FSI 19 meeting next week once the draft report of the meeting has been received and assessed by the BIMCO Secretariat.