Piracy off the coast of Somalia is threatening the Port of Halifax’s push into the Indian subcontinent, says a West Coast shipping expert.
A group of some of the world’s largest maritime organizations launched a campaign Tuesday called Save Our Seafarers aimed at combating the piracy problem.
"The Port of Halifax is trying very hard to develop the trade link with India and the Far East through the Suez Canal. So the ships which would potentially be operating that trade route have to directly transit the piracy-affected areas. So it’s very relevant," Stephen Brown, president of the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, said in an interview Tuesday.
Over the past five years, there has been a growth of piracy attacks on merchant shipping, he said.
"Initially, (they were happening) in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia," said Brown, a former ship captain. "But those attacks have expanded over the entire north Indian Ocean, right up and close to the coast of India now. So the whole coastline of the north Indian Ocean is now infested with pirates.
"Currently, they’re holding more than 30 ships and more than 700 seafarers captive and this problem has been escalating. The number of ships and seafarers detained has doubled in the last year."
No ships either destined for or sailing from Canadian ports have been attacked yet by pirates, he said. But, according to Brown, it is only a matter of time.
"So far, we’ve been lucky, but when the problem is doubling every year, you’re not going to be lucky forever," he said.
While the Asian Pacific Gateway competes directly with Halifax for the Indian trade, both coasts have to deal with the same piracy problem, Brown said.
"World trade is being seriously compromised and Canadian trade is part of world trade."
But a Port of Halifax spokeswoman said Tuesday the city is still attracting Southeast Asian shipping business, despite the piracy problem.
"We’ve had some good growth in that region," said port authority spokeswoman Michele Peveril. "We have been able to attract new shipping lines and new connections into Southeast Asia.
"Although we are quite aware of what’s been happening in the industry for the past few years with piracy, currently we have 20 global shipping lines that call Halifax, and we are in very frequent contact with them.
"To date, we have not had issues with shipping lines raising a concern with that Suez route not being a possibility because of piracy. So we’ve not had issues and we’re not expecting this to be a problem for shipping lines considering Halifax."
Shipping lines that call on Halifax use routes that "generally don’t take them along the Somali coast," she said.
"They generally turn more toward Yemen."
The campaign launched Tuesday is headed by groups that include the Baltic and International Maritime Council, the International Chamber of Shipping, the International Shipping Federation, Intercargo, Intertanko and the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
"Shipping is governed by the International Maritime Organization, which is based in London," Brown said.
But of the group’s 169 member countries, only about 25 have committed warships to the Indian Ocean to protect merchant shipping, he said.
"If world trade cannot safely transit the north Indian Ocean, it’s going to be very serious overall to the trading pattern. It’s already adding the burden of about $12 billion a year to the cost of world trade. So the consumers will pay this out of their pockets, not to mention the disastrous impact on seafarers worldwide of these long detentions whilst ransoms are being negotiated."
The campaign is pushing for more robust terms of engagement so navies can better deal with pirate mother ships.
"These mother ships are ships which have already pirated and they are then being used to take pirates out into the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, where they can attack other ships," Brown said.
The campaign is also lobbying for an international maritime court that could prosecute the pirates.
"In so doing, you would overcome the problem we have at the moment whereby the jurisdiction is not really defined," Brown said.