RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  S/C/W/315 
7 June 2010 
 (10-3108) 
Council for Trade in Services  
  
 
MARITIME TRANSPORT SERVICES 
 
Background Note by the Secretariat
1 
  
1. This Note has been prepared at  the request of the Council for Tr ade in Services.  It contains 
background information on the maritime trans port sector and revises, updates and supplements 
documents S/C/W/62 of 16 November 1998 and S/CS S/W/106 of 4 October 2001, which relate to the 
same subject matter. 
2. The Note covers the period since the conclusi on of the negotiations of the Negotiating Group 
on Maritime Transport Services (3 July 1996), whic h was the last time Members provided detailed 
information on their regulatory regimes.  Particul ar attention has been given to the economic and 
regulatory developments of the past decade whic h were not covered by the Secretariat's 1998 and 
2001 sectoral papers.  Where necessary, these elements will be placed in a broader historical context.  
The Note is not, of course, intended to provi de a comprehensive account of the sector.   
                                                     
 
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to 
the positions of Members and to their rights and obligations under the WTO.  S/C/W/315 
Page 2  
 
  I. ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MARITIME 
TRANSPORT SECTOR 
3. Maritime transport is the lifeblood of the world economy.  The following Table gives an 
indication of the economic size of the sector and its  recent growth without, of course, reflecting its 
impact on, and contribution to, virtually all segments of the world economy.  The figures are highly 
aggregated, and their breakdown as well as the underlying calculation method are the subject of 
debate among experts.  They should, th erefore, be interpreted with care. 
Table 1:  Maritime activities (1999- 2004) 
 
    Turnover 
(US$ million)     
 1999 2004 Annual 
growth 
% Share 
% 
1. Vessel operations         
1.1 Merchant shipping 160,598 426,297 22 31 
1.2 Naval shipping 150,000 173,891 3 13 
1.3 Cruise industry 8,255 14,925 12 1 
1.4 Ports 26,985 31,115 3 2 
  Total 345,838 646,229 13 47 
2. Shipbuilding         
2.1 Shipbuilding (merchant) 33,968 46,948 7 3 
2.2 Shipbuilding (naval) 30,919 35,898 3 3 
2.3 Marine equipment 68,283 90,636 6 7 
  Total 133,170 173,482 5 13 
3. Marine resources         
3.1 Offshore oil and gas 92,831 113,366 4 8 
3.2 Renewable energy - 159  0 
3.3 Minerals and aggregates 2,447 3,409 7 0 
  Total  95,278 116,933 4 8 
4. Marine fisheries         
4.1 Marine fishing 71,903 69,631 -1 5 
4.2 Marine aquaculture 17,575 29,696 11 2 
4.3 Seaweed 6,863 7,448 2 1 
4.4 Seafood processing 89,477 99,327 2 7 
  Total 185,817 206,103 2 15 
5. Other maritime activities         
5.1 Marine tourism 151,771 209,190 7 15 
5.2 Research and development 10,868 13,221 4 1 
5.3 Marine services 4,426 8,507 14 1 
5.4 Marine IT 1,390 4,441 26 0 
5.5 Marine biotechnology 1,883 2,724 8 0 
5.6 Ocean survey 2,152 2, 504 3 0 
5.7 Education and training 1,846 1,911 1 0 
5.8 Submarine telecoms 5,131 1,401 -23 0 
  Total 179,466 243,898 6 18 
  Total maritime activities  939,570 1,386,645 8 100 
Source :  Douglas - Westwood Ltd. 
4. Although this Note will be concerned mainly  with "vessel operations" (excluding military 
vessels), which in 2004 accounted for almost half of all maritime activity with a turnover in the order 
of US$500 billion, other activities listed in the Table also involve a significant volume of maritime  S/C/W/315 
 Page 3 
 
 
  transport.  The extraction of underwater gas and o il, for instance, is serve d by an entire fleet of 
specialized offshore supply vessels providing high value-added services;  the same applies to 
submarine telecommunications and cable ships;  non-cruise-related maritime tourism, with its 
numerous passenger vessels;  and, to a lesser extent , the extraction and transport of mineral resources 
and aggregates. 
5. It is interesting to note the extraordinarily rapid increase in merchant shipping activity, over 
22 per cent a year compared to only a few per cent in the other subsectors, reflecting the boom in maritime transport at the turn of the century.  As will be shown below, the boom continued until the 
end of 2008.   
6. Another measure of the importance of the mar itime transport sector is provided in the 
international trade statistics published by the WTO.
2  These show the relative share of maritime 
transport in exports of transportation services.  In recent years, maritime transport’s share has grown considerably, up from 36 per cent in 1996 to 43 per cent in 2006, and today accounts for around 10 per cent of total services exports.  In 2006, the most recent year for which figures by mode of transport are available, world maritime trans portation exports accounted for US$322 billion of the 
transportation services exports total of US$750 b illion.  In 2008, following another two years of 
strong growth, exports of all transportation ser vices totalled US$890 billion.  Although maritime 
transport's share of the total is unknown, it has probably increased significantly. 
7. In 2005, in terms of jobs and equipment,  merchant shipping accounted for 50,000 cargo 
vessels
3 and between 20,000 and 30,000 passenger and service vessels (port, offshore and cable 
vessels), crewed by over 1.3 million seamen and serviced  by hundreds of thousands of dockers, crane 
operators and auxiliary service workers, for which no  global data exist.  Maritime and port activities 
generate millions, if not tens of millions, of jobs. 
8. For a more detailed description, maritime transport in the strict sense of the term must be 
distinguished from port services. The two sectors, while obviously linked, follow a different economic logic (for instance, greater financial security in the case of ports, but also a longer time horizon, 
externalities and public service considerations) and do not usually involve the same actors. 
A. M
ARITIME TRANSPORT SERVICES  
9. Given its particular nature, passenger  transport needs to be discussed separately from other 
segments of the maritime transport sector. The vessels providing maritime passenger transport services can be grouped into three main categories:  small pleasure craft, ferries operating services to islands and across narrow stre tches of water, and cruise ships.  Th e first two categories, for which no 
overall figures exist, usually operate under the lega l regime governing cabotage and are, for the most 
part, national flag vessels.  Cruise ships, on the ot her hand (category 1.3 in Ta ble 1), generally operate 
in an international context that is totally open in terms of market access.  The economic health of the 
maritime passenger transport sector depends strongly on the general economic situation and 
intermodal competition (tunnels, aviation).  Subsid ization is a determinant in the case of non-
profitable island routes which are often operated on concession, with subsidies being contingent upon 
route and capacity requirements.  The regulatory characteristics and economic development of the 
                                                     
 
2 WTO, International Trade Statistics 2008, p. 117 . 
3 These fleet-related figures are not necessarily consiste nt with those which appear later on in this Note, 
which are for the most part taken from UNCTAD's annual review of maritime transport.  This may be explained by the tonnage threshold used for the various data. While UNCTAD data cover ships of more than 1,000 gross 
registered tonnage (GRT), the respective threshold is unknown for the data from Douglas Westwood Limited. S/C/W/315 
Page 4  
 
  passenger transport sector therefore differ largely from those governing the cargo vessel sector, which 
constitute the main focus of this Note.
4  
10. Shipping remains by far the leading mode of transport for goods and carries more than 90 per 
cent of global trade.5  Without shipping, according to the international Chamber of Shipping, "half the 
world would starve and the other half would freeze".  The road transport sector also claims to carry 90 
per cent of world trade, but this involves si gnificant double counting since most maritime 
consignments travel overland before  and after being shipped.  Air transport is in direct competition 
with maritime transport for the carriage of products with a high unit value. 
11. The structure of the sector is summed up well by the OECD Secretariat:6 "The cargo shipping 
industry is not a homogenous entity. It consists of sev eral discrete sectors, each  of which is served by 
different types of purpose built vessels.  Each sector is marked by specific performances and 
structural features, and they are governed by a comp lex array of national and international regulations 
responding to specific issues that have arisen as the international trading system has evolved.  The 
operations within liner and bulk shipping differ greatly.  Liner services are provided for numerous 
shippers by shipping companies operating (mostl y) containerships on a regular basis between 
scheduled, advertised ports of loading and discharge .  On the other hand, bulk shipping operations are 
undertaken by vessels designed to carry homogeneous unpacked dry cargoes (for example grain, iron ore and coal), or liquid cargoes (such as oil, liquefied  gas or chemicals).  Bulk shipping operations are 
ordinarily carried out for individual shippers on non-scheduled routes." 
12. An exhaustive description should also include the specialized shipping services that have 
survived the wave of containerization, such as t hose provided by timber carrying vessels, reefers for 
refrigerated cargoes, pure car and truck carriers (PCTC) and tween-deckers for miscellaneous 
merchandise.  However, for the purpose of this Note , such activities may be ignored.  On the whole, 
they are little affected by market access restrictions  and have even, in some cases, been pioneers of 
liberalization.  A case in point is the third-party tr ansport of Central American bananas to the United 
States by Scandinavian vessels, which began in the early 20
th century.   
13. The maritime goods transport sector has expe rienced highly uneven economic development 
for the past 15 years, with two periods of modera te growth interrupted by  two similarly moderate 
recessions, followed by a boom of unprecedented dura tion and scale, and then a massive crash.  This 
situation partially conceals certain structural deve lopments which, although significant, have been 
going on over the past 30 years. 
1. Economic trends in the sector over the last decade 
14. Maritime transport activities are closely corre lated with developments in international 
merchandise trade of which they are the main v ector. The links between industrial production, trade 
and transport are clearly illustrated in the follo wing Chart, though subject to certain caveats.7 Similar 
                                                      
4 For more information on passenger vessels see document S/CSS/W/106 , paragraphs 43-53 , pages 11-14.  
5 For a more detailed explanation of this figure , see UNCTAD Transport Newsletter No. 38 (Fourth 
quarter 2007/ First quarter 2008), pages 14-16. 
6 See report on "Regulatory Issues in Internationa l Maritime Transport", Augu st 2001, available for 
consultation at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/63/2065436.pdf . 
7 According to UNCTAD, the method ology employed (seaborne trade in tonnes - which conceals the 
significance of low-tonnage, but high-value and rapidly growing containerized traffic - and merchandise trade as 
indices reflecting value less inflation rather than volumes as such) tends to underestimate the growth in seaborne trade. Moreover, the reference to only the OECD Industrial Production Index - for historical reasons - has lost 
relevance in the light of the growing industrial stre ngth of emerging countrie s, in particular China.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 5 
 
 
  Charts, using different indices8, show growth in seaborne trade to exceed that of total international 
trade.  
Chart 1:  Comparative trends in world GDP, the OECD Industrial Production Index, world merchandise 
trade (volume) and world seaborne trade (volume), 1994-2009 
(1994 = 100) 
 
Source:  UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2009 . 
15. In any case, there are compelling explanations for the significant growth in seaborne trade 
since the beginning of this decade, as reflected in  Chart 1;  first and foremost, the increasing demand 
by emerging economies for raw materials involves longer-haul transport. At the same time, their 
growing industrial strength, coinciding with in creasingly complex assembly processes and expanding 
consumer markets, also entails more frequent and lo nger-haul transport. The profitability of the sector 
depends, however, not only on the demand for trans port (world trade), but also on supply (capacity) 
trends in the sector itself and on its competitive relati onship with other means of transport (Table 2).   
Table 2:  Ten variables in the 'shipping market model' 
Demand Supply 
1. The world economy 1.  World fleet 
2. Seaborne commodity trades 2.  Fleet productivity 
3. Average haul (tonnage and distance)  3. Shipbuilding production  
4. Random shocks 4. Scrapping and losses 
5. Transport costs 5. Freight revenue   
Source :  Martin Stopford, Maritime Economics  (3rd Edition, 2009, Routledge) , page 136.  
 
16. The first two recessions experienced by the sect or during the period under review (in 1997, 
the Asian financial crisis and in 2000 the burst of  the "dot.com" bubble) were relatively limited in 
                                                      
8 For example, the special report in Isemar/Le Marin  of 31 October 2008, "Shipping 2008: Les clefs du 
transport maritime mondial" which compares trends in GDP (value), world trade (value) and solely 
containerized  maritime cargo (volume).  See the figure at the bottom left of p. 4. 
Available at http://www.nxtbook.fr/lemarin/lemarin/DSSHIPPING081031/index.php#/0 .  World merchandise 
trade 
 
World seaborne trade  
World GDP
OECD Industrial 
Production Index  
50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190 210 230 
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009S/C/W/315 
Page 6  
 
  scope and in any case not comparable to the presen t crisis.  The period 2002 to 2008 saw a boom of 
historic magnitude far exceeding the two peak periods  of maritime prosperity in the 20th century, 
which came in the wake of the First Wo rld War and the Korean War, respectively.
9  Table 3 seeks to 
capture the interaction of demand and suppl y trends over the past three decades. 
Table 3:  Shipping market fundamentals (1973-2007) 
 Demand growth Supply tendency Market tone 
1973-1988 Falling Overcapacity Depressed 
1988-1997 Slow Expanding Competitive 
1998-2007 Very fast Shortage Prosperous 
Source :  op cit , page 131.  
17. The following Chart illustrates maritime transport supply a nd demand relationships up to 
2009. 
Chart 2:   Growth of demand and supply in container sh ipping, 2000 – 2009 (annual growth rates) 
-15-10-5051015
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Demand Supply 
 
Source: UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2009, updated with data from Clarkson Container Intelligence Monthly, 
January 2010.  
 
18. Although operators and analysts were expecting a crash around 2005, as evidenced by press 
articles of the time, this never came to pass. Li ner operators, counting on rapidly rising demand for 
containerized transport, not least from China, ende d up, like bulk operator s, believing in a "soft-
                                                      
9 For more information on the history of maritime transport since the mid-18th century see Martin 
Stopford ( op. cit. ) and "Shipping and Trade 1750- 1950:  Essays in International Maritime Economic History" 
edited by Lewis R. Fischer and Helge W. Nordvik, Lofthouse Publications, 1990.      S/C/W/315 
 Page 7 
 
 
  landing" scenario at worst or at best in the inception of a virtuous, never-ending and self-sustaining 
growth cycle.10 
19. The surge in late 2007 and early 2008 in the price of fuel, which accounts for a very 
significant proportion of shipowners' ope rating expenses, led, as it did with air transport, to the first 
slowdown in sector growth.  The financial cris is, which broke out in October 2008, had only a 
relatively marginal impact on shipowners' accounts th at year.  The full force of this crisis was, 
however, felt in 2009, as shown by the examples below: 
(a) A 90-per-cent collapse, within a matter of days, of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), the spot 
market indicator for dry bulk cargoes.11  
(b) A similar situation in respect of liquid bulk, gi ven the decline in oil consumption triggered by 
the crisis.  (However, there has been a slight recove ry due to the recent increase in oil prices; in the 
end, one tanker out of 12 was converted into a floating storage unit.) 
(c) A fall of around 20 per cent in liner and bulk trade in terms of volume, with significant 
variations between regions (intra-regional trade fari ng better, the US suffering a greater decline than 
Europe, etc.) and types of cargo (e.g, the virtual disappearance for several months of vehicle carrier 
trade). 
(d) A reduction in turnover of 40 per cent for liner tr ade, driving the accounts of all shipping lines 
into the red. The industry lost between US$11 and 20 billion overall in 2008, depending on the source 
consulted.12 
(e) Threat of bankruptcy for certain major operato rs of scheduled liner services and the entire 
maritime cluster and chain of maritime services.   
20. The scale of this crisis in relation to previous ones can basically be attributed to overcapacity.  
Buoyed by what now appears to be irrational ex uberance, many shipowners placed huge orders for 
new and increasingly large vessels and beca me heavily indebted in the process.13  For example, in 
2009, one of the leading operators, CMA-CGM, reportedly had increased the tonnage of its fleet by 185 per cent compared with 2004 and by 289 per cen t taking into consideration the vessels ordered 
and due to enter its fleet by 2013.  More 'conserva tive' competitors scheduled tonnage increases of 40 
to 95 per cent by 2013 in relation to 2004.
14   
                                                      
10 There are a few notable exceptions , such as Chinese Taipei's liner operator and shipowner Evergreen, 
which ranks fourth in the world and has maintained a conservative capacity expansion policy that was 
considered overly cau tious at the time. 
11 Admittedly, this Index is not entirely representative (the majority of contracts being medium- or 
long-term), is highly volatile (given that it is extrem ely compartmentalized in terms of vessel size and cargo 
volume and is reliant on a highly speculative futures ma rket), and had just a lit tle earlier reached totally 
unrealistic levels as a result of sh ort-lived undercapacity.  However, the BDI fell well below the break-even 
point and its numerous swings since then only very occasionally rise above this threshold. 
12 US$20 billion according to Erik Lund, Research Director of the Danish firm Carnegie, and 
US$12 billion according to the AXS Alphaliner database  of French shipbroker  Barry Rogliano Salles 
(admittedly restricted to the top 20 companies).   
13 The maximum size of a liner vessel has increased from 4,000-5,000 containers in the mid 1990s to 
up to 14,000 containers, and there are realistic plans for 20,000-container units. (The container or "box" or TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) corresponds to a 20-foo t long container and constitutes the standard unit of 
capacity measurement for the containerized transport sector .)  In practice, modern container ships increasingly 
load 40-foot-long boxes.  
14 The latter include Cosco (China), MSC (Italy-Switzerland), Hamburg Süd (Germany), Yang Ming 
(Chinese Taipei), CSCL (China) and ZIM (Israel) are not much lower.  Evergreen (Chinese Taipei), Hapag-S/C/W/315 
Page 8  
 
  21. Overcapacity has therefore reached unprecedente d levels, reportedly reaching almost 70 per 
cent in the bulk sector. By way of comparison, 20 per cent was considered a high figure a decade or 
so ago.  The gradual reduction will inevitably take several years.   
22. Shipowners have adopted a number of strategi es to address this crisis:  not renewing or 
renegotiating charter-parties with tonnage provide rs;  cancelling or renegotiating already processed 
orders for new vessels;  taking vessels out of service;  cancelling services;  reorganizing loops, 
occasionally by pooling resources (for example, inst ead of several companies each using one vessel 
per week on a given line, slots are chartered on a single vessel supplied by each company in turn);  
reducing cruising speed (a reduction of merely a few knots yields fuel cost savings of more than 25 per cent);  and in the case of Europe-Asia links, re -routing via the Cape of Good Hope rather than 
passing through the Suez Canal.   
23. These are, nevertheless, stopgap measures.  They  have been complemented by diversification 
strategies as in the case of Maersk, the leading liner shipping company, which invested heavily in 
extra-maritime activities, in particular o il, supermarkets and pharmaceuticals.   
2. Other economic characteristics of the sector  
(a) Trends in cargo volume and origin 
24. Cargo volumes have almost doubled in less than 15 years, coinciding with a significant 
increase in developing countries' share of global maritime trade.  As far as loaded goods are 
concerned, this reflects both the importance of  developing countries as a source of commodities 
(agricultural products, hydrocarbons, coal, ir on ore, bauxite, etc.) and their increasing 
industrialization, which generates significant trade in  manufactured exports.  The rise in the volume of 
goods unloaded in developi ng countries reflects their growing imports of commodities and capital 
goods, as well as increasingly significant import flow s of consumer goods as a result of economic and 
demographic growth.  Chart 3 summarizes cargo origin, distribution and volume at the beginning, midpoint and end of the period under review.
15  
25. Table 4 clearly shows the explosion of traffic,  in particular originating in Asia, and the 
correlative emergence of Asian ports, notably the rele ntless growth of ports in mainland China.  The 
tendency for traffic to be focused in a few major ports - the "super hubs" - can be discerned.  These 
being the only terminals with a trade volume sufficien t to satisfy the 8,000-plus container capacity of 
super post-Panamax vessels.  As far as bulk is concerned, a significant increase can be seen in cargo to emerging country ports in general, and China in particular.  Also of note is the fact that pure 
transshipment hubs without a significant hinterland (Dubai, Gioia Tauro, Algeciras and, to a certain 
extent, the Port of Tanjung Pelepas) rise or fa ll in the rankings in line with the number of call 
contracts they obtain from the various shipowners.  Other salient points include the reduction by 
almost one-half of the number of - highly fr agmented - European ports, the concomitant 
disappearance of Japanese ports and the absen ce of African and Latin American ports. 
                                                                                                                                                                    
 
Lloyd (Germany), Maersk (Denmark), NYK (Japan) and OCCL (Hong Kong, China). For further details, see 
Containerisation International , January 2010, p. 37. 
15 For a more in-depth study, for example, by continent and by type of goods, the scale of which would 
go beyond the narrow confines of this document, see the annual UNCTAD  Review of Maritime Transport (1997, 
2001 and 2009 editions, Chapter 1.B).  S/C/W/315 
 Page 9 
 
 
  Chart 3:  World seaborne trade by country groups 
(percentage distribution of tonnage, 1996, 2001 and 2008)  
 
 
A Developed market-economy countries D Developing countries F Transition economies 
B Eastern Europe E Developing economies G Developed economies 
C Socialist Asia     
 
 Note: The terminology used is that of the initial sour ce.  Furthermore, UNCTAD has changed the country 
categories in response to geopolitical developments.  For the cla ssification of countries and terr itories, see, for example, 
UNCTAD  Review of Maritime Transport 1997 , Annex I, page 105, and UNCTAD  Review of Maritime Transport 2009 , 
Annex 1, page 181. 
 
 Source: UNCTAD  Review of Maritime Transport , 1997, 2002 and 2009 editions.  
 
 
 
 Goods loaded (1996)  
C 
2.1% B 
3.7% A  
42.8% D 
51.4% Goods loaded (1996)
D 
26.8% 
C 
2.1% 
B 
3.0% A
68.1%
Goods loaded (2001)  
C 
5% B 
5% D 
50% A  
40% Goods loaded (2001)
A 
62%D 
31% 
C 
6% 
B 
1% 
Goods loaded (2008)  
F 5.87% 
E  
60.63% G 33.5%Goods loaded (2008)
F
1.07%
G 
49.25% E
49.68%Total:  4,758 million tonnes  Total:  4,813 million tonnes
Total:  5,832 million tonnes  Total:  6,107 million tonnes
Total:  8,168 million tonnes  Total:  8,180 million tonnes 
  S/C/W/315 
Page 10  
 
 Table 4:  Top 20 container terminals (1998 , 2001, 2008) 
  
1998 2001 2008 
Ranking Port Country or territory Traffic 
(TEU 
million) Ranking Port Country or territory Traffic 
(TEU 
million) Ranking Port Country or territory Traffic 
(TEU 
million) 
1 Singapore Singapore 15.10 1 Hong Kong, 
China Hong Kong, China 17.90 1 Singapore Singapore 29.91 
2 Hong Kong, 
China Hong Kong, China 14.65 2 Singapor e Singapore 15.52 2 Shanghai China 27.98 
3 Kaohsiung Chinese Taipei 6.27 3 Busan Republic of Korea 7.90 3 Hong Kong, China Hong Kong, China 24.24 
4 Rotterdam Netherlands 6.03 4 Kaohsiung Ch inese Taipei 7.54 4 Shenzhen China 21.41 
5 Busan Republic of Korea 5.32 5 Shanghai China 6.34 5 Busan Republic of Korea 13.42 
6 Long Beach United States 4.10 6 Rotterdam Neth erlands 5.94 6 Dubai United Arab Emirates 11.82 
7 Hamburg Germany 3.56 7 Los Angeles United States 5.18 7 Ningbo China 11.22 
8 Los Angeles United States 3.38 8 Shen zhen China 5.07 8 Guangzhou China 11.00 
9 Antwerp Belgium 3.27 9 Hamburg Germ any 4.68 9 Rotterdam Netherlands 10.80 
10 Shanghai China 3.05 10 Long Beach Un ited States 4.46 10 Qingdao China 10.32 
11 Dubai United Arab Emirates 2.80 11 Antw erp Belgium 4.21 11 Hamburg Germany 9.70 
12 New York United States 2.51 12 Port Kl ang Malaysia 3.75 12 Kaohsiung China 9.67 
13 Tokyo Japan 2.45 13 Dubai United Arab Emirates 3.50 13 Antwerp Belgium 8.66 
14 Felixstowe United Kingdom 2.36 14 New York United States 3.31 14 Tianjin China 8.50 
15 Gioia Tauro Italy 2.12 15 Bremerhaven Ge rmany 2.89 15 Port Klang Malaysia 7.97 
16 Yokohama Japan 2.04 16 Felixstowe United Ki ngdom 2.80 16 Los Angeles United States 7.84 
17 Kobe Japan 1.94 17 Manila Philippine s 2.79 17 Long Beach United States 6.48 
18 Tanjung Priok Indonesia 1.89 18 Tokyo Japa n 2.77 18 Tanjung Pelepas Malaysia 5.60 
19 Bremerhaven Germany 1.85 19 Quingdao Chin a 2.64 19 Bremen/Bremerhaven Germany 5.50 
20 Algeciras Spain 1.82 20 Gioia Tauro Italy 2. 48 20 New York/New Jersey United States 5.26 
Total 86.56 Total 111.74 Total 247.36 
Source :  UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport, 1999, 2002 and 2009.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 11 
 
 
  26. Another striking trend, though not illustrated, is the intensification of intra-regional traffic, a 
phenomenon related both to the prol iferation of free-trade agreements and to new multi-source 
assembly processes  
(b) Changes in fleet size and distribution 27. 'Cargo geography' does not correspond exactly to 'carrier geography'.  Some countries or 
territories which generate and/or absorb a large vol ume of cargo, such as Australia, Canada and, to a 
certain extent, the United States, do not have a na tional flag fleet or even a controlled fleet 
proportional to the magnitude of their foreign trad e.  On the other hand, maritime countries or 
territories without significant hinterlands, such as  Norway;  Greece;  Denmark;  Singapore;  
Hong Kong, China and, to certain extent, Chinese Ta ipei, have historically developed a comparative 
advantage in cross-trade maritime transport (i.e. third-party shipments).  They control fleets the 
capacity of which far exceeds their foreign trade vol ume.  Between these two extremes, lie numerous 
countries and territories which have both a significant amount of foreign trade and a controlled fleet 
(if not a national flag fleet) used not only for domestic trade, but for cross trade liner and bulk traffic.  For cost reasons, controlled fleets may be register ed under "open registries", to use a euphemism, or 
"flags of convenience", to use a more common, but pejorative term.   
28. Table 5 features the fleets and registrations of the 35 leading maritime States or territories, 
which together control over 95 per cent of the world fleet.  Half of these 35 countries or territories are 
developing nations, a proportion which has increased slightly.  On the whole, the ranking over the 1996/2008 period remained more or less stable, w ith the listed countries or territories often moving 
only one to three places.  Japan, a distant second in 1996, has recently taken the number one spot from 
Greece, with 92 per cent of its fleet registered outside Japan.   
29. Notable progress has also been made by Germany, which has risen from 9
th to 3rd place, 
Denmark (14 →9), Italy (16 →13), Belgium (27 →20), Malaysia (30 →21) and Kuwait (35 →28).  Also 
noteworthy is the appearance in 2008 of Canada in 16th place, with 85 per cent of its fleet registered 
outside the country, the United Arab Emirates (22nd), Cyprus (24th), Vietnam (29th) and Bermuda 
(35th).  The steepest falls in the ranking include those of the United States (3 →7), the Russian 
Federation (10 →14), Sweden (12 →25), Brazil (18 →30), France (20 →27) and Switzerland (23 →33), 
while Australia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Romani a and Finland have disappeared from the ranking 
altogether.   
30. The share of the controlled fleet in countries/te rritories total fleet has increased by some 15 
points, from around 55 per cent to around 70 per cent.  This reflects the switching of liner fleets to 
open registries - hitherto comprised mainly of bul k vessels - due to increased competition in the liner 
sector, which enjoyed partial protection in the past.  As in the case of bulk shipping, the national flag, 
with the costs it entails, has to so me extent become a luxury that shipowners feel they can no longer 
afford.  There are, of course, considerable national variations in the share of the controlled fleet, from 
16 per cent in the case of India to almost 93 per cent in the case of Japan, and yet, with an average of 
almost 70 per cent, the phenomenon is clearly general and widespread.  Interest ingly, this proportion 
exceeds 40 or 50 per cent in numerous developing countries, although their national flag fleets generally benefit from labour costs.
16  
31. Table 6 is in some ways symmetrical to Table 5, as it gives the true nationalities of the fleets 
of the main "open" and "international" registries.   To clarify the dividing line between these two 
categories, UNCTAD defined (in 2006) a registry as "open" when more than 90 per cent of its vessels 
                                                      
16 It should, however, be noted that the situation of developing countries in terms of labour costs varies 
greatly in particular as regards intr a-regional trade.  A Thai crew, for in stance, will be more costly than a 
Burmese crew. S/C/W/315 
Page 12  
 
  are foreign-owned.  This has become the conventio nally agreed criterion.  A lower threshold would 
have included in this category the registries of Cyprus;  Hong Kong, China;  Singapore;  and the 
United Kingdom.  The second category - "internationa l" or "second" registries - is made up of 
registries created by countries wishing to mainta in a national flag fleet for strategic reasons 
(possibility of mobilization, desire to keep maritime expertise in the country, etc.).  These registries 
offer fiscal and labour benefits comparable, if not identical, to those of open registries (a high 
proportion of foreign sailors are paid at the globa lized international market rate, i.e. around US$600 a 
month, and not in line with the social and wage conditions of developed countries).   
Table 5:  The 35 leading maritime co untries and territories (1996-2008) 
1996 2008  
 Deadweight tonnage (million tonnes)  Deadweight tonnage (million tonnes) 
Country or territory of 
domicile National 
flag Foreign 
flag Total Foreign 
flag (%) Country or territory of 
domicile National 
flag Foreign 
flag Total Foreign flag 
(%) 
 1 Greece 46,444 71,954 118,398 60.77  1 Japan 12,199 161,085 173,284 92.96
 2 Japan 22,116 65,171  87,287 74.66  2 Greece 52,833 116,593 169,426 68.82
 3 United States 13,134 35,994  49,128 73.27  3 Germany 17,428  87,525 104,953 83.39
 4 Norway 28,127 20,781  48,908 42.49  4 China 37,204  55,594  92,798 59.91
 5 China 23,162 13,095  36,257 36.12  5 Norway 11,542  38,673  50,215 77.01
 6 Hong Kong, China  5,401 28,079  33,480 83.87  6 Korea (Rep. of) 20,858  25,764  46,622 55.26
 7 Korea (Rep. of) 10,253 12,869  23,122 55.66  7 United States 20,606  19,358  39,964 48.44
 8 United Kingdom  5,269 15,875  21,144 75.08  8 Hong Kong, China 18,296  15,427  33,723 45.75
 9 Germany  6,140 11,918  18,058 66.00  9 Denmark 11,958  19,636  31,594 62.15
10 Russia 12,231  5,113  17,344 29.48 10 United Kingdom 11,175  19,741  30,916 63.85
11 Chinese Taipei  7,577  7,534  15,111 49.86 11 Chinese Taipei  4,068  25,735  29,803 86.35
12 Sweden  2,099 12,490  14,589 85.61 12 Singapore 16,482  11,747  28,229 41.61
13 Singapore  8,876  5,544  14,420 38.45 13 Italy 12,853   6,896  19,749 34.92
14 Denmark  7,215  5,337  12,552 42.52 14 Russia  5,944  12,343  18,287 67.50
15 India 11,172  1,252  12,424 10.08 15 India 14,389   2,822  17,211 16.40
16 Italy  7,654  4,359  12,013 36.29 16 Canada  2,454  14,716  17,170 85.71
17 Saudi Arabia  1,078  9,749  10,827 90.04 17 Turkey  6,803   8,647  15,450 55.97
18 Brazil  7,178  2,538   9,716 26.12 18 Saudi Arabia  1,234  13,676  14,910 91.72
19 Turkey  8,997  0,107   9,104  1.18 19 Iran  1,357  13,202  14,559 90.67
20 France  4,313  3,446   7,759 44.41 20 Belgium  6,283   7,164  13,447 53.28
21 Iran  6,133  0,206   6,339  3.25 21 Malaysia  7,717   3,842  11,559 33.24
22 Netherlands  3,597  2,196   5,793 37.90 22 United Arab Emirates  0,701   8,331   9,032 92.23
23 Switzerland  0,618  4,549   5,167 88.03 23 Netherlands  4,217   4,186   8,403 49.81
24 Ukraine  3,587  1,261   4,848 26.02 24 Cyprus  3,196   5,162   8,358 61.76
25 Philippines  4,507  0,095   4,602  2.07 25 Sweden  1,740   5,697   7,437 76.60
26 Romania  3,506  0,978   4,484 21.82 26 Indonesia  4,956   2,064   7,020 29.41
27 Belgium  0,148  4,105   4,253 96.52 27 France  2,988   3,576   6,564 54.48
28 Indonesia  3,060  1,154   4,214 27.39 28 Kuwait  3,846   2,602   6,448 40.36
29 Thailand  2,505  1,537   4,042 38.04 29 Vietnam  3,629   1,938   5,567 34.82
30 Malaysia  3,561  0,131   3,692  3.57 30 Brazil  2,444   2,266   4,710 48.11
31 Spain  0,657  2,764   3,421 80.79 31 Spain  1,562   2,885   4,447 64.88
32 Finland  1,136  2,249   3,385 66.43 32 Thailand  3,506   0,620   4,126 15.03
33 Croatia  0,696   2,591   3,287 78.83 33 Switzerland  1,012   2,816   3,828 73.57
34 Australia  2,807  0,479   3,286 14.58 34 Croatia  2,311   0,985   3,296 29.88
35 Kuwait  2,863  0,351   3,214 10.92 35 Bermuda   3,227   3,227 100.00
Total (35 countries) 277,817 357,851 635,668 56.29 Total (35 countries) 329,791 726,541 1,056,332 68.78
Percentage 43.7% 56.3% 100%  Percentage     
World total 303,417 376,626 680,044 55.38 World total 347,007 757,952 1,104,959 68.60
Percentage 44.6% 55.4% 100%  Percentage     
Source:  UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport, 1997 and 2009. 
32. Shipowners registering their vessels under such  "second" or "international" registry  enjoy 
legal security (in respect of maritime mortgages, risk of arrest, arbitration clauses, etc.) and the 
reputation afforded by the national flag in terms of inspection and security (IMO white lists, Equasis 
database or US Coast Guard black lists).  Operati ng costs are slightly higher than those of open 
registries, but much lower than those pertaining to a "full" developed country flag. 
33. Fifteen of the 35 leading registries almost exclusively consist of vessels belonging to their 
own nationals:  Greece, China, the Republic of Korea,  India, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United States, 
Malaysia, Turkey, the Russian Federation, Indonesi a, Belgium, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 
Chinese Taipei, and Thailand.  There appear to be two reasons for the low proportion of vessels 
controlled by foreign nationals.  First, the legisl ation of the country concerned might not allow the 
national flag to be flown unless there is an adequa te "authentic link" between flag and property.   S/C/W/315 
 Page 13 
 
 
  Secondly, even where the country's registry is, in theory, open to foreigners, the fiscal or employment 
regime, or other types of regulation, may make it of little interest to owners of foreign ships. 
34. Some countries register under their flag both national vessels and a significant proportion of 
foreign vessels.  The most notable countries in this regard are Hong Kong, China, and Singapore, 
where almost two thirds of regist ered tonnage are controlled by fore igners, nine tenths of which from 
Cyprus.  Almost half of the tonnage registered under the United Kingdom flag is owned by foreigners, 
as is 40 per cent of that registered in the Netherlands. 
35. Three of the 35 leading maritime nations have a "second registry" or "international registry" 
in the narrow sense, i.e. a registry which allows the national flag to be flown, but under conditions 
that are different to those of the principal na tional registry.  The registries concerned are the 
Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS), the Da nish International Register of Shipping (DIS) and 
the French International Registry (RIF).  While the DIS is used almost exclusively by ships controlled 
by Danish nationals, the NIS and the RIF are also us ed for the registration of certain ships controlled 
by foreigners.  
Table 6:  True nationality of major open-registry fleets, as at 1 January 2009 (number of ships) 
Country or territory Panama Liberia Marshall 
Islands Bahamas Malta Cyprus Isle 
of 
Man Antigua 
& 
Barbuda Bermuda Saint 
Vincent 
& G.  Total 
Japan  2 292   115   23   87   6   20   7     2   3  2 555 
Greece   503   387   282   217   408   249   52   4   2   64  2 168 
Germany   95   857   233   43   95   174   52   952   21   2  2 524 
China   558   12   10   9   12   8     16   87   712 
Norway   134   49   86   231   100   31   52   10   5   15   713 
Rep. of Korea   324   5   13     28   1     1       372 
United States   172   105   170   111   29   6   4   8   26   21   652 
Hong Kong, China   127   60   7   25   2   2     5   5   233 
Denmark   40   9   9   60   44   4   46   21     17   250 
United Kingdom   56   30   16   73   21   23   95   10   7   14   345 
Chinese Taipei   332   92   1         4   429 
Singapore   92   36   20   19    2   1     2   172 
Italia   31   48   3   12   53   7         16   170 
Russian Federation   24   95   9   3   57   52     4     25   269 
India   25   1   2   2   2   3      6   41 
Canada   11   5    85   1   2      1   105 
Turkey   96   12   57   7   188     2   8     17   387 
Saoudi Arabia   8   28   4   18               58 
Iran   8      86   10      2   106 
Belgium   3   1   1   13   16   2      13   49 
Malaysia   17     8   14               39 
United Arab 
Emirates   118   27   16   22   3   10         13   209 
Netherlands   29   6   10   32   4   49   3   16    6   155 
Cyprus   14   38   42   28   30   126    17    1   296 
Sweden   7   10   6   8   3   2   1   1   19   2   59 
Indonesia   26   2     2               30 
France   7   4    23   5    1    1   23   64 
Kuweit   9     2   1        12 
Viet Nam   35   4                   39 
Brazil   8   3   1   1               13 
Spain   51    1   9   6   8       75 
Thailand   11     5         16 
Switzerland   32   11   11   1   16       7     10   88 
Croatia   3   2   8   1   10           11   35 
Bermuda       11   11               22 
Total 35 countries  5 298  2 054  1 060  1 174  1 226   791 316  1 059   104   380  13 462 S/C/W/315 
Page 14  
 
  Source:  UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport, 2009. 
 
36. It needs to be noted that the distinction betw een second registry and full national registry is 
sometimes blurred.  For instance, the requirement  whereby, for registration under the "full" Greek 
flag, a vessel's crew had to be 100 per cent Greek or from the European Union was modified back in 
2004, and the use of a high proportion of foreign sailors  is now authorized, thus aligning the costs of 
the Greek registry with those of international or  indeed open registries.  Interestingly, the 
phenomenon of second registries, initially limited to  Europe, has spread geographically to North 
America and the Pacific (Marshall Islands registry) and to Asia (Chaeju Island registry for Korea), 
and many developing country shipowners are lobby ing their authorities to adopt comparable regimes 
primarily for fiscal reasons. 
(c) Privatization 37. The trend towards privatization of publicly-o wned maritime companies continued during the 
period under review.  The privatization of the Comp agnie Générale Maritime Française and its merger 
with the Compagnie Marseillaise d'Affrètement to fo rm the CMA-CGM is in this respect emblematic.  
(CMA-CGM become a major player after rising from 20
th place in 1996 to 3rd place since 2006.) 
Public ownership now appears to be limited to developing countries in certain geographical areas, 
such as Asia (India, China, Singapore) and Africa.  African companies hardly have any fleet left and 
operate as non-vessel operating common carriers (NVOC Cs).  Where public ownership still exists, it 
often takes an indirect or composite form involvi ng a holding company or sovereign fund, or partial 
quotation on the stock exchange.  There is also at least one case of multinati onal public ownership, a 
model popular in the 1970s and more common to air line companies, that of the UASC shipping line 
which is owned by several Arabian-Persian Gulf States. 
(d) Concentration 38. Until the beginning of the 1980s, concentration occurred mainly within national borders and 
remained confined to the liner sector.
17  At the beginning of the 1990s, however, the phenomenon 
became transnational, with three major mergers/ac quisitions:  P&O with Nedlloyd, Maersk with Sea-
Land (United States) and Neptune Orient Lines (Si ngapore) with American President Lines (United 
States).  In the last fifteen years, the trend toward s transnational concentration has become even more 
pronounced in the liner sector (with the share of the top twenty operators increasing from 48 per cent 
of capacity in 1997 to 69 per cent in 2009)18 and has spread to the highly internationalized, but 
hitherto unconcentrated, bulk sector. 
                                                      
17 Cases in point are  the gradual regrouping of all or almost all British liner shipping companies under 
P&O, French liner shipping companies under CMA-CGM, Dutch companies under Nedlloyd, German 
companies under Hapag, and Danish companies under Maersk.   
18 CP Ships (Canada) successively acquired Contship (United Kingdom), TMM (Mexico) and 
Lykes (United States) before being taken over by Hapag-Lloyd.  Hapag-Lloyd was then sold in 2009 by its 
German owner TUI to another German operator, the Ha mburg-based public-private consortium Albert Ballin, 
which narrowly edged out Neptune Orient Lines (Singapore), itself the owner of American President Lines 
(United States).  CMA-CGM (France) has taken over Delmas (France), OT Africa Lines (United Kingdom), 
Australia National Line, MacAndrews (United Kingdom), Comanav (Morocco), US Lines (United States) and Cheng Lie Navigation (Chinese Taipei).  Maersk (Denmark) has bought out Sea-Land (United States), CMB 
(Belgium), Safmarine (South Africa), Torm Line (Denmark) and most notably P&O/Nedlloyd, previously the 
second largest liner shipping company in the world.  Evergreen (Chinese Taipei) has taken over Lloyd Triestino (Italy) and Hatsu Marine (United Kingdom).  CSAV (Chile) has bought out Norasia (Hong Kong, China), while 
Hamburg Süd (Germany) has acquired Alliança (Brazil).  S/C/W/315 
 Page 15 
 
 
  39. These trends reflect the disappearance of tr aditional mercantilist model, under which a 
shipping company was almost exclusivel y dedicated to its own country's trade,19 and the major 
carriers’ decision to fill gaps in their network c overage by making acquisitions abroad.  In this 
context, the direction taken by acquisitions was not  only north-north or north-south, but also south-
north and south-south.  This led to a major reshu ffle in the ranking of the leading ocean shipping 
companies, with the top 10 or 20 shipowners expa nding significantly in size, as is shown in the Table 
7.  Nonetheless, liner maritime transport does remain  less heavily concentrated than many industrial 
sectors.20  
Table 7:  Top 20 liner shipping companies (1997-2009) 
1997 2009 
Rank Operator Country or 
Territory Number 
of 
vessels Capa-
city 
(TEU) Rank Operator Country or 
Territory Number 
of 
vessels Capa-
city 
(TEU) 
1 Maersk Line Denmark 106   232 1 Maersk Line Denmark 426  1 740 
2 Evergreen Chinese Taipei 108   228 2 MSC Italia/ 
Switzerland 431  1 510 
3 P&O Nedlloyd United Kingdom/ 
Netherlands 106   221 3 CMA-CGM France 280   864 
4 Sea-Land  United States 95   215 4 Evergreen Chinese Taipei 181   629 
5 COSCO China 139   201 5 Hapag Lloyd Germany 132   496 
6 Hanjin/DSR 
Senator Rep. of Korea/ 
Germany 62   174 6 COSCO China 141   491 
7 MSC Italia/Switzerland 100   154 7 NOL/APL Singapore 128   470 
8 MOL Japan 62   115 8 CSCL China 121   431 
9 NYK Japan 68   128 9 MOL Japan 109   387 
10 HMM Rep. of Korea/ 
Germany 36   112 10 Hanjin Rep. of Korea 83   365 
11 Zim Israel 59   98 11 OOCL Hong Kong, 
China 90   364 
12 Yangming Chinese Taipei 42   96 12 NYK Japan 82   358 
13 CMA-CGM France 64   89 13 Yang Ming Chinese Taipei 85   317 
14 OOCL Hong Kong, China 30   85 14 K Line Japan 99   309 
15 NOL Singapore 36   85 15 HMM Rep. of Korea 58   258 
16 CP Ships Canada 46   85 16 Hamburg-Süd Germany 81   256 
17 K Line Japan 45   84 17 Zim Israel 82   251 
18 APL United States 38   79 18 UASC Kuweit 43   155 
19 Hapag-Lloyd  Germany 23   73 19 PIL Singapore 76   147 
20 Cho Yang Rep. of Korea  30   55 20 CSAV Chili 56   141 
Total    1 295  2 609 Total    2 784  9 939 
World fleet   n.d.  5 454 World fleet    9 447  14 
429 
Source:  UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport, 1998 and 2009 editions. 
40. While the number of vessels operated by the t op 20 shipowners has grown by 2.5 per cent, 
their capacity has expanded by 4.5 per cent:  a clear  indication of the increasing size of ships.  
Maersk, closely followed by Evergreen in the past, is  the outright leader in terms of capacity, if not in 
                                                      
19 This model had already come under strain following the emergence of third-party transport and the 
organization of liner transport under the hub and spoke system and the transhipments it involves.  The abolition 
of liner conferences and the disappearance of the United Nations Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences, which 
used to have a “bilateralizing” effect on the organi zation of traffic, delivered  the final coup de grace. 
20 For a detailed comparison of levels of concentration in the various subsectors of the maritime cluster, 
see UNCTAD Transport Newsletter No. 24, Second Quarter 2004, p. 7. S/C/W/315 
Page 16  
 
  the number of vessels.  Most of its growth has been achieved through operations abroad.  Many 
companies, including major ones, have been  bought out by competitors and disappeared.
21  
41. Companies gaining ground have done so through spectacular takeovers, entailing risks when 
recession hit, as was the case for CMA-CGM (13 →3), Hapag Lloyd (19 →5) and Neptune Orient 
Lines (15 →7).  Others, however, moved upwards w ithout making major acquisitions (OOCL and 
MSC).  New entrants include China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL, 8th), a grouping of shipowners 
from the region; two companies from emerging ec onomies (the multinational UASC operating in the 
Arabian/Persian Gulf, 18th, and CSAV of Chile, 20th);  and a carrier specializing in intra-regional 
feeder traffic (PIL, 19th) which shoes the extent to which th is form of trade is expanding.   
42. Interestingly, the current crisis has not yet led to new concentrations, although declining 
market capitalization and desperate attempts to fi nd "white knights" have created potential prey.  For 
the first time in years, the top 20 companies’ share in total liner traffic declined in 2008, though only 1 
per cent from 70 to 69 per cent. 
43. The bulk cargo sector is traditionally less h eavily concentrated because it is frequently 
organized on the basis of the "one-ship company"22 model for tax reasons and to deliberately 
minimize statutory liability.23 Nevertheless, as shown in Table 8, some movement towards 
concentration through mergers/acquisitions has occu rred, at least in subsectors (crude oil, LNG 
carriers, handy-size dry bulk). 
Table 8:  Leading bulk cargo shipping lines (2007) 
Top 10 oil carriers 
(2007)  Top 10 LNG carriers 
(2007)  Top 5 dry bulk carriers 
(2007)  
Shipowner Country or 
territory Number 
of ships Tonnage 
(DWTa 
million) Shipowner Country or 
territory Number 
of ships Shipowner Country or 
territory Tonnage 
(DWT 
million) 
Frontline Bermuda 82  19.2 MO L Japan 62 Cosco China 19.3 
Teekay 
Shipping Canada 115  14.2 NYK Ja pan 46 NYK Japan 12.9 
MOL Japan 41  10.98 K Line  Japan 33 MOL Japan 11.8 
NYK Japan 41  9.88 Stasco United 
Kingdom 32 K Line Japan 10 
OSG United States 53  9.49 MISC Malaysia 24 Zodiac 
Maritime United 
Kingdom/ 
Israel 6 
NITC Iran 33  8.9 BG Group United 
Kingdom 21    
Euronav Belgium 36  8.8 GDF-Suez France 18    
MISC Malaysia 62  8.78 Teekay Corp. Canada 13    
Vela Int. 
Marine Dubai 22  6.73 Golar LNG Bermuda 12    
Hyundai 
Merchant Marine Korea 
(Rep. of) 26  6.58 BW Gas Norway 11    
a Dead Weight Tonnes. 
Source:  ISEMAR/Le Marin, special issue, 31 October 2008, Shipping 2008: Les clés du transport maritime mondial. 
Available for consultation at:  http://www.nxtbook.fr/le marin/lemarin/DSSH IPPING081031/index.php#/0  
                                                      
21 For example, P&O/Nedlloyd, 3rd in 1997, and Sea-Land, 4th in 1997, were both absorbed by Maersk;    
while  CP Ships, 16th in 1996, was taken over by Hapag Lloyd and American President Line (APL), 18th, by 
Neptune Orient Lines (NOL).  Another operator, Cho Yang, went bankrupt in 2001. 
22 The one-ship company model also serves as a framework for ship financing packages, which is why 
it is increasingly used in the liner sector  (the German KG system, for example).  
23 For further details on the subject, see the OECD  study on "Ownership and Control of Ships", 
DSTI/DOT/MTC(2002)/7 of 5 January 2003.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 17 
 
 
  (e) Technical developments 
44. Although the sector has not seen any groundbreaking technological developments over the 
past 15 years, there has been incremental progr ess, marked by the competitive drive towards giant 
vessels, in that current technology has not yet e xhausted its potential.  In formation technology has 
pervaded the entire transport chai n, from the design of vessels by CAD to fine-tuned management of 
energy consumption and centralized load manageme nt (both from a technical standpoint, i.e. load 
distribution on board ship, minimizing the number of crane moves necessary for unloading, and from 
a commercial standpoint, i.e. profitability thres hold calculation, yield management, tracking, 
computerization of data required by customs and the police, etc.).   
45. While the Internet has become the prime t ool for communication between shippers and 
shipowners, online freight platforms have not replaced  the various maritime transport intermediaries, 
such as freight forwarders, shipping agencies, custom s agents and other ancillary transport personnel.  
Only two multi-carrier platforms, GT-Nexus and INTTR A, have truly emerged, but they appear to be 
tools for existing professionals rather than actual ne w intermediaries.  Attempts are being made to 
develop on-demand software (e.g. Software as a Service (SaaS)) as in other industrial sectors, but it is 
too early to gauge the extent of their success.  In the bulk cargo sector, business is still being handled 
by shipbrokers, both by telephone and onscreen, but th e sophistication of the electronic tools available 
to brokers has increased, especially as regards frei ght forward agreements, an area in which brokers 
work in much the same way as other trading professionals. 
46. Further significant developments have included modular construction of ships and the gradual 
marginalization of vessels with their own handling equipment, as ports gradually modernized and 
acquired container cranes.  The size of bulk cargo ships has remained more or less unchanged with a 
slight increase at the end of the reporting period - for commercial rather than technical reasons (oil 
tankers of over 500,000 tonnes were built in the 1970s,  but the largest tankers operating today do not 
exceed 250,000-300,000 tonnes).  As regards liner tra ffic, however, maximum ship size has increased 
almost four-fold over the past 15 to 20 years (from 4,000 to 12,000-14,000 container units) in a 
constant drive towards greater productivity (in bo th cases a 20 man crew is necessary to operate the 
ship) and to cope with the exponential growth in tr affic mentioned above.  Realistic designs of 20,000 
container-unit ships were on the drawing board when the crisis broke.   
47. However, the trend towards gian t vessels has been hampered by: 
(a) problems of draught depth (such ships require 16-18 m draught berths, which very few ports 
can provide without costly dredging work) and inter-ocean canal passage (ships exceeding 5,000 
container capacity cannot currently pass through the Panama Canal nor the proposed 20,000 container 
ships through the Suez Canal);  and 
(b) organizational problems of a logistical and comme rcial nature (very few ports have thousands 
of containers to load on board a ship on any give n day, and the size of the load may have adverse 
effects on cost and loading time). 
48. Alongside the constant drive for greater produc tivity, two key factors driving technological 
development have been stronger security legisl ation (for the IT chain) and environmental 
considerations, particularly when they coincide with energy saving concerns.  Several companies, 
including CMA-CGM, have started experimenti ng with kite/auxiliary sail technologies.  While 
projects for rapid and ultra rapid container carriers, put forward by a number of shipyards in Germany and France, never came to fruition, high-speed passenger vessels have proved relatively popular.  
Weather routing techniques are also being developed.   S/C/W/315 
Page 18  
 
  B. P
ORT SERVICES  
49. The port terminal sector has shown remarkable de velopment over the past 15 or 20 years.  As 
from the late nineteenth century at least, the predom inant model was that of the tool port, that is, a 
government-owned port directly providing most port services, including those of a purely commercial 
nature, and responsible for a large proportion of cargo handling.  Handling - even light handling - 
equipment belonged to the port;  crane operators  used the equipment as port employees, while 
stevedoring companies only leased the equipment and employed workers to unload the ships with the 
help of teams of dock workers.  The latter were  managed, under the closed-shop principle, by a 
central office linked to the port, and followed strict  employment rules established and enforced jointly 
by the dockers' associations and the port author ities.  There were of course varying degrees of 
flexibility, depending on the country. 
50. Private management of port handling operations was limited to a few geographically isolated 
instances, e.g. terminals leased by the US port au thorities to mostly small-scale operators, British 
ports privatized under the Thatcher Government, a nd a few ports in the Asia-Pacific region.  The 
latter saw the emergence of the first major privat e terminal operator, P&O Australia, which was to 
become P&O Ports and subsequently Dubai Port World. 
51. The last 15 to 20 years have seen a complete reversal of the situation.  The predominant 
model today, accounting for more than two thirds of  container movements, is that of the 'landlord 
port', where the operator: 
- operates under a concession agreement (generally for a period of five to 60 years); 
- directly employs and coordinates the work of crane operators and dock workers answerable to 
a single management;  and 
- invests in the superstructures (sta cking areas, cranes, forklifts, etc.) 
52. These changes have occurred in developing a nd developed countries alike.  The speed at 
which they have been accomplished can be explai ned by very significant productivity gains.  The 
specialized literature regularly cites gains of more than 60 per cent over a period of just a few years 
and, overall, the figure of 15 container moves per hour  (the sector's standard physical benchmark) has 
risen to more than 25, regardless of latitude.  According to the Economic Commission for Latin 
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), experience suggests that private-sector involvement in port terminals may translate, via reduced tariffs, into sav ings in international seabor ne transport, but more 
importantly there is a significant lowering of costs fo r the ship operator due to faster delivery, better 
security and more certainty that the itinerary will be adhered to.
24 
53. Competition played a major role in this contex t - ports are natural monopolies in appearance 
only.  As an example, the Antwerp hinterland ex tends as far as Lyon, and under the hub and spoke 
system imposed by container super-carriers (super post-Panamax), vessels are not allowed to put into 
port more than three or four times at either end of  their routes (in northern Europe at one end and the 
Far East at the other, for example).  However, th ere are as many as 15 to 20 ports capable of serving 
as ports of call at either end of the itinerary.   
54. In a matter of just a few years, major operat ors have emerged, in addition to a multitude of 
medium-size, often purely domestic, operators.  Ho wever, it is important to distinguish between 
private management and private ownership:  three of the six operators listed in Table 9 below have 
                                                      
24 ECLAC, "The cost of international transport, and in tegration and competitiveness in Latin America 
and the Caribbean", FAL Bulletin 191, July 2002, available in English and Spanish only.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 19 
 
 
  one public shareholder (PSA, COSCO Pacific and Dubai Port World) and these three operators 
control 60 per cent of the traffic covered by this list. 
55. Global figures for the industry are scarce, piecemeal, and contradictory.  This is because of a 
constantly shifting environment and because most of  the data (terms and c onditions and duration of 
contracts, traffic commitments, actual productivity levels) are protected by business secrecy.  On the 
other hand, there is a wealth of micro data, port by port and operation by operation, that can be used to 
prepare an initial outline.  Table 9 presents informati on pertaining to the top six port operators and the  
basic geographical spread of their activities, it in cludes only international operators with a global 
presence .25  
56. It is interesting to note that terminal operators  from North America (where the sector is highly 
fragmented) do not appear on the list.  The operato rs cited are from Asian or developing countries, 
with the exception of one European  operator.  The Table mentions two shipowners (APM Terminals, 
a subsidiary of the Maersk Group, and COSCO Pacific,  a subsidiary of China's national carrier), while 
the remainder are pure port operators.  Nonetheless,  until the crisis prompted many shipowners to 
revert to their primary activity, i.e. transport, they assiduously took stakes (often no more than a 
minority stake) in terminals, viewed as strategi c assets in times of congestion (e.g. CMA–CGM in 
Malta, France, Morocco, Viet Nam, China, etc.).26   
Table 9:  Operations of the top six international container lines (2008) 
Operator Traffic 
handled  
in 2008 
(TEU 
million) Turnover  
in 2008 
(US$ 
million) Net profits 
in 2008 
(US$ 
million) States/territories of operation and number of terminals 
operated in each case in 2009a 
1 HPH 
(Hong Kong, 
China) 67.6 5.109 n/a Germany (1);  Argentina (1);  Australia (1);  Bahamas (1);  
Belgium (1);  China (13);  Korea (2);  Egypt (2);  Hong Kong, 
China (4);  Indonesia (2);  Italy (1 );  Malaysia (1);  Mexico (4);  
Myanmar (1);  Oman (1);  Paki stan (2);  Netherlands (4);  
Panama (2);  Saudi Arabia (1);  United Kingdom (3);  Sweden 
(1);  Tanzania (1);  Thailand (3);  Viet Nam (1) 
2 PSA 
(Singapore) 63.2 3046 721 Argentina (1);  Belgium (2);  China (6);  Korea (2);  India (5);  
Italy (2);  Japan (1);  Panama (1 );  Netherlands (1);  Portugal 
(1);  United Kingdom (1);  Singa pore (1);  Thailand (1);  Turkey 
(1);  Viet Nam (1) 
3 COSCO Pacific 
(China) 45.9 338 280 Belgium (1);  China (15);  Egypt (1);  Greece (1);  Singapore (1)
4 APMT 
(Denmark) 34 3119 161 Germany (2);  Angola(1);  Argentina (1);  Bahrain (1);  Belgium 
(1);  Brazil (2);  Canada (1);  Cameroon (1);  China (10);  
Congo (1);  Côte d'Ivoire (1);  Denmark(1);  Egypt (1);  Ecuador 
(1);  Spain (1);  United States (1 1);  France (2);  Ghana (1);  
India (2);  Italy (3);  Japan (2);   Jordan (1);  Malaysia (1);  
Morocco (1);  Nigeria (2);  Om an (1);  Netherlands (2);  
Sri Lanka (1);  Chinese Taipei (1);  Thailand (1);  Viet Nam (2) 
5 Dubai Port World 27.7 3283 621 Germany (1);  Saudi Arabia (1);  Australia (5);  Algeria (1);  
Argentina(1);  Belgium (2);  Canada (1);  China (4);  Korea (1);  
                                                      
25 Not covered are regional players such as the German/Italian Eurogate Contship, which handled 
traffic totalling 14.2 million containers in 2008 but whos e operations are confined to  four European countries 
and Morocco;  or domestic players such  as Shanghai International Port Corporation, which does have projects 
abroad (in Zeebrugge, Belgium, for instance), but whose operations are currently limited to China;  or HHLA, 
whose activities do not extend beyond the port of Hamburg, but with container traffic totalling 7.3 million units.   
26 The issue as to whether or not th e disciplines pertaining to access to  and use of port infrastructure 
proposed in the model schedule for maritime transport (document Job 1872) could apply to private port 
operators has been discussed, inconclusi vely, by Members on several occasions. S/C/W/315 
Page 20  
 
  (United Arab 
Emirates) Djibouti(2);  Egypt (1);  United Arab Emirates (4);  Spain (1);  
France (3);  Hong Kong, China;  India (5);  China (3);  
Indonesia (1);  Mozambique(1);  Pakistan (1);  Philippines (1);  
Dominican Republic (1);  Romania (1);  United Kingdom (3);  
Senegal(1);  Thailand (1);  Venezuela (1);  Viet Nam (1);  
Yemen (1) 
6 ICTSI 
(Philippines) 3.7 432 57.5 Brazil (1);  China (1);  Ecuador (1 );  Georgia (1);  Indonesia (1);  
Japan (1);  Madagascar (1);  Ma laysia (1);  Philippines (6);  
Poland (1);  Syria (1)  
a Terminal operator portfolios vary considerably from one  year to another because of short-term concessions, 
occasionally turbulent contractual relations, and the cancellatio n or postponement of some projects in the wake of the 
economic and financial crisis. 
Note:  The ranking concerns only containe r terminals, excluding bulk cargo or speci alized (timber, vehicles) terminals, 
for which no global data exist.   
Source :  Containerisation International,  May 2009, and company websites. 
 
57. Investors from outside the maritime transport community, such as construction firms, banks, 
and insurance and real estate companies, have invested to varying degrees in the sector. Until 
recently, these investments were among the most profitable infrastructure investments, along with airports.   
58. The economic crisis hit the port operator sector somewhat more slowly than it did the 
maritime transport sector proper.  Traffic, and hence port and associated handling fees, plunged by 
nearly 20 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 and throughout 2009, albeit with very significant regional, time- and traffic segment-re lated variations.  For example, dry bulk traffic levels declined 
sharply to begin with, only to rebound as Chinese impor ts of iron ore from Australia resumed;  similar 
trends were observed in the pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) segment, where the traffic base had 
shrunk to almost zero for several months.  Likewise, regional and intra Asian traffic in particular were 
less severely affected.  Some observers note the begi nnings of a revival in liner traffic, where - failing 
volume increases - freight rates are said to be returnin g to profitability threshol d levels.  However, the 
build-up of surplus tonnage remains yet to be absorbed. 
59. In addition to the income losses they had suffered, a few months later port operators were 
faced with requests from their shipowner customers, caught in a stranglehold as a result of the crisis, 
to lower their charges.  They were  also compelled to cut back on th eir investment plans and to cancel 
or at least postpone some of their projects.  As in the case of airports, the sector is structurally set for 
expansion in the medium-term.  Yet, in the short- term, there is a considerable amount of localized 
surplus capacity.  There is talk of 30 to 40 per cent excess capacity in the Strait of Gibraltar, for 
example, which is a strategic location for hub and spoke traffic, and where, following the example of 
APMT Algeciras, all major shipping companies were involved in the staged development of a 
gigantic project in Tangier. 
60. In the meantime, bank financing for such project s has largely dried up (down to 10 per cent of 
its level only two years before, according to some sources), whilst revenue to pay off the debt is 
becoming increasingly scarce.  In spite of these difficulties, most major port operators still 
experienced marginal growth in 2008, ending the year with a positive balance.  For 2009, data are still 
too few for useful comments. 
61. The international terminal operator sector  expanded whilst simu ltaneously undergoing a 
process of concentration.  Thus, the market share of the top six operators (Hutchison Ports Holdings – HPH, Port of Singapore Authority – PSA, AP Möller Terminals – APMT, SSA Marine, P&O Ports,  S/C/W/315 
 Page 21 
 
 
  and Eurogate) rose from 14.1 per cent in 1991 to 35.6 per cent in 2005.27  Unfortunately, no estimates 
based on the same methodology are available for 2009, but the recent figures provided by UNCTAD show that in spite of these mergers, concen tration in this sector remains relatively low.
28   
II. REGULATORY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MARITIME TRANSPORT 
SECTOR 
62. Recent developments in this area relate mainly  to security, the environment, maritime safety, 
and competition.  Regulatory activity concerning mark et access and liberalization has progressed at a 
slower rate. 
A. SECURITY  
63. Since the tragic events of 11 September 2001, security measures have increased at both 
national and international level.  Despite the signifi cant impact of these measures on trade, they will 
be referred to only very briefly in this document, given their particular nature.  
64. While most measures were initially taken at na tional level and unilaterally, it soon became 
clear that international cooperation was needed to  prevent conflict of laws, the accumulation of 
operationally incompatible standards, and the cost s associated therewith.  To this end, both the 
International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) developed 
key multilateral standards in an unusually short space of time.  In addition, specialized bilateral 
forums have been established in some cases, such as the bilateral working groups on transport security 
between the European Union on the one hand and the United States, Japan, China, Korea, Russia and, 
in the near future, the Caspian and Mediterranean Sea countries, on the other. 
65. In terms of content, security-related measures can  be grouped into four categories.  The first 
category  seeks to ensure, in the port of arrival , that neither the vessel nor its cargo is being used for 
terrorist purposes and that no terrorists are hiding among the vessel's crew.  Such measures include 
the posting of guards in ports, security audits, light ing and fencing requirement s, the installation of 
detection systems - including radiological and nuclear detection systems - and communication systems, the definition of levels of alert and alert procedures, procedures for the screening and 
identification of port workers, and the appoi ntment and training of port security personnel.
29   
66. The second category  of measures covers the vessel and its equipment :  pilot projects 
concerning electronic seals and geo-localized container tracking;30  introduction of a "black box" 
identification system (IMO Automatic Identification System (AIS)); vessel audits and security plans, 
including the appointment and training of security  officers, administrative authority approval, 
                                                      
27 Midoro, R., Musso, E. and Parola, F. (2005), "Maritime liner shipping and the stevedoring industry: 
market structure and competition strategies".  
28 UNCTAD, Review of Mar itime Transport 2009, p. 7 . Thus, the Herfindalh Hirschmann index stands 
at 219, far below the 1,000 and 1,800 marks that poin t, respectively, to a very concentrated and a highly 
concentrated sector.  
29 US Coast Guard Security Guidelines for Wa terfront Facilities (updated in 2002) and final 
implementing regulations (2003) for the Maritime Trans portation Security Act; IMO International Ship and Port 
Facility Security Code (ISPS) of D ecember 2002, which came into forc e on 1 July 2004; Regulation (EC) 
No. 725/2004 of 31 March 2004 transposing the ISPS Code; Directive 2005/65/EC of 26 October 2005 on port 
security; and ILO Convention No. 185 of 2003 laying down new rules governing the creation of falsification-proof seafarers' identity documents, which replaced ILO Conven tion No. 108 of 1958 on  seafarers' identity 
documents, etc.). 
30 US programmes "Smart and Secure Trade Lanes" and "Operation Safe Commerce";  APEC 
electronic container tracking project; ASEAN shipping movements database; and ISO standards on electronic 
seals (2008). S/C/W/315 
Page 22  
 
  introduction of an alert system, and overall monitoring by the State in which the vessel puts in to port 
(IMO ISPS Code), and obligation to provide full details of the content of the vessel's before its arrival 
at the port of destination (Japan) or its departure from the port of origin.
31 
67. The third category  of measures involves "exporting" security  obligations to the port of origin :  
targeted or general preshipment inspection progr amme conducted by customs officials from the 
destination country in collaboration with customs officials from the country of origin.32 
68. The fourth category  of measures seeks to ensure the se curity of the entire transport chain , 
from the production facility in the country of origin right through to the port exit point in the destination country, and to place responsibility on th e chain's private actors, who, in return for 
subjection to the financial and administrative cons traints linked to these security measures, will 
benefit from "fast lane" cargo clearance.
33   
69. UNCTAD, the World Bank and the OECD have produced several studies assessing the 
financial impact of these measures on the various stakeholders and on trad e, in particular in relation to 
developing countries.34  Reportedly, the costs may reach several hundred million US dollars for both 
initial investment and operation, equi valent to 1 to 3 per cent of the total value of traded goods.  The 
trade journal Fairplay, which recently reviewed the five-year implementation of the IMO ISPS Code, 
estimates that the Code's initial investment costs amount  to US$3.1 billion, while  its annual cost are in 
the order of US$570 million.  
70. Meanwhile, regulators are tending to relax the measures introduced immediately after 
11 September, or to revise regulations so as to take  more effective account of the needs of operators 
and the risks of conflict of laws.35  It is, however, too early to confirm the existence of a persistent 
trend towards the easing of security measures. 
                                                      
31  US "24-Hour Rule" and "10+2 Rule";  Commission Regulation (EC) No. 312/2009 of 16 April 
2009, due to enter into fo rce on 31 December 2010. 
32  The targeted US Container Security Initiativ e (CSI) programme; the five US pilot projects 
conducted in the United Kingdom;  Pakistan;  Oman;  Honduras and Hong Kong, China, under the 2006 Safe Port Act; and the US "100 per cent scanning" law of July  2007, due to enter into force on 1 July 2012, etc. 
33 This category of measures includes the US C-TP AT (Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) 
and C-TPAT+ programmes of 2002 and 2005, the European Community's Authorized Economic Operator 
(AEO) status of 2006, which came into effect in 2008, and the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure 
and Facilitate Global Trade of June 2007. 
34 UNCTAD:  Transport Newsletter, February  2002, and "Maritime Security:  ISPS Code 
Implementation, Costs and Related Financing", 14 March 2007, UNCTAD/SDTE/TLB/2007/1;  World Bank:  
"Global Economic Prospects 2004", p. 186, which cites two other studies:  Leonard, J., 2001, "Impact of the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks on North American  Trade Flows", and Walkenhorst, P., and Dihel, N., 
2002, "Trade Impacts of the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September 2001:  A Quantitative Assessment", OECD, 
July 2003, cited in the Financial Times of 2 June 2004. 
35 Examples are:  (a) The announcement made in November 2009 by the US Coast Guard concerning a 
forthcoming new regulation aimed at easing the procedures and reducing the escort fe es applicable to foreign 
seafarers' shore visits at US ports;  (b) Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1875/2006 on the regime governing the advance declaration of cargo, due to enter into force on 1 July 2009, was amended by Regulation No. 312/2009 
of 16 April 2009, wh ich takes into account specialist comments a nd postpones the entry into force until 31 
December 2010; and (c) the decision ta ken by the US Departme nt of Homeland Security  to postpone, under 
existing law, by two years until January 2014, the entry into  force of the "100 per cent scanning" legislation, on 
account of the lack of availa ble technology, logistical ch allenges, and the shortage of skilled manpower to read 
and interpret images.  At the same time, the Govern ment Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the 
Department of Homeland Security evaluate whether 100 per cent scanning was feasible regardless of the time 
frame.  For further details see Containerisation International, January 2010, p. 18.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 23 
 
 
  B. COMPETITION POLICIES  
71. Following a brief convergence in the late 1990s , maritime transport-related competition 
policies of WTO Members have once again diverged considerably over the last decade.  The following discussion is structured according to the form of cooperation involved. 
1. Shipping conferences 
72. Shipping conferences, which first appeared in 1870, are the oldest form of cooperation 
between shipowners.  A conference is a group of shipowners that fixes departure frequencies and 
common prices for a given geographical area.   
73. When competition laws were developed in the United States at the end of the 19
th century and 
elsewhere after the Second World War, these groups benefited from anti-trust immunities (such as the 
block exemption afforded by Council Regulation (EEC) No 4056/86 of 22 December 1986).  These 
immunities were very broad in "ship-owning count ries" (Japan, European Community, etc.) and of a 
more conditional nature in "shipper countries" (Aus tralia, Canada, United States), with obligations in 
respect of agreement filing, the opening of confer ences to any shipowner wishing to participate, and 
equal treatment for shippers, and the right to fix tariffs independently of conferences (Independent 
Rate Action (IRA)). 
74. Conferences, weakened not only by such legi slation, but by the emergence of large 
independent shipowners ("outsiders ") and the concentration of the liner sector, gradually lost the 
almost exclusive influence control over shipping tra ffic in the course of the 1980s and 90s.  They then 
had less than 60 per cent of traffic under their control.   
75. Some regulatory convergence occurred when the United States introduced a system of  
confidential "services contracts", freely negotiate d between individual ship owners and shippers 
(Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA), 1999).  In  the meantime, the Directorate General for 
Competition of the European Communities, through a series of prosecutions for abuse of dominant 
position, gradually reduced the ability of conferences to fix tariffs and regulate capacity, thus forcing 
European shipowners, too, to reso rt to individual services contracts.36 
76. In 2006, the Council of the European Communities  abolished, through Regulation 
No. 1419/2006, the block exemption and the shipping conference system as of 31 October 2008.  All joint price fixing activity for services from or to  the European Union and the European Economic 
Area is now therefore illegal.  With regard to i ndividual capacity regulation, the situation is a little 
more complex.  The Regulation recognizes that the sp ecific nature of maritime transport calls for the 
exchange of a certain amount of data, albeit at a much more aggregated level than was previously 
practised by conferences, in order to plan invest ments and take individual informed decisions 
regarding capacity.
37   
                                                      
 36 On 1 December 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon amendi ng the Treaty on European  Union and the Treaty 
establishing the European Community (done at Lisbon , 13 December 2007) entere d into force.  On 29 
November 2009, the WTO received a Verbal Note (WT/L/7 79) from the Council of th e European Union and the 
Commission of the European Communities stating that, by virtue of the Treaty of Lisbon, as of 1 December 2009, the European Union replaces and succeeds the European Community .
 
37 To this end, on 1 July 2008, the Commission publis hed guidelines on the application of Article 81 of 
the EC Treaty to maritime transport services, which provid e general information on the types of data that can be 
lawfully exchanged    (see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUri Serv.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:245:0002:0014:FR:PDF
). Shipowners 
serving the European Union have since introduced an information system to this effect.  S/C/W/315 
Page 24  
 
  77. According to numerous observers, the disappearance of conferences had much less of an 
impact than had been feared by the professionals , because the sector’s concentration and technical 
organization in the form of consortia and alliances,  and the generalization of services contracts had in 
fact already rendered conferences - which had alre ady lost their rate-fixing and route coordination 
functions - largely obsolete.  Some industry representatives
38 have called for a temporary suspension 
of competition rules and of the European Community's  abolition of liner conferences in particular, so 
as to provide shipowners with the le vers needed to collectively restor e what they consider equilibrium 
to the market, that is, price fixing and capacity ad justment.  In a survey published in December 2009, 
customers acknowledged that, in the face of recently plummeting freight rates, it was very difficult to 
apportion responsibility between the economic crisis a nd the abolition of the conference system, since 
the two phenomena occurred almost  simultaneously in October 2008.39 
78. The European Community is the only jurisdicti on, until now, in which conferences have been 
prohibited.  Elsewhere they are authorized under various, increasingly strict, conditions.  
79. In the United States , conferences are treated like any other group of shipowners.  In practice, 
they have disappeared on routes to and from the Un ited States.  The last one, the Trans-Atlantic 
Conference Agreement (TACA) covering traffic wi th Europe, was dissolved on 1 October 2008 upon 
the entry into force of Council Regulation (EC) No 1419/2006.  
80. In Australia , the two most recently revised versions of Part X of the Trade Practices Act 
(1999 and 2005) have maintained anti-trust immunity for conferences.   However, in line with the 
recommendations issued by the Productivity Commission, the Government has prohibited all shipowner groups (including, therefore, conferences) from in any way inhibiting their members' 
capacity to conclude services contracts.  Pena lties and provisions concerning the lodging of 
complaints by shippers have been reinforced and a net public benefit requirement has been 
introduced. 
81. In Japan
, questions raised by the Japan Fair Tr ade Commission concerning adjustments to the 
current regulatory system resulted, in 2007, in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport 
undertaking in-depth studies on the competition polic y of other countries, changes in the maritime 
transport sector, the stabilizing function of agreemen ts between shipowners, and the impact that the 
abolition of immunity would have on the Japanese economy.  In Canada , the Shipping Conference 
Exemption Act was most recently amended in 2001 in order to introduce the notion of confidential 
services contracts.  In India , in May 2007, a commission appointed by the Government recommended 
the abolition of the shipping conference system.  In September 2007, the Competition Commission of 
India ordered shipping companies to desist from an ti-competitive behaviour.  Legislation is envisaged 
to reinforce the powers of this commission.  
82. In China , maritime competition legislation (Interna tional Maritime Transport Regulations of 
December 2002, consolidated in 2007) stipulates th at conference agreements or any other agreements 
between shipowners are to be filed with the Sha nghai Shipping Exchange, which has been designated 
as the delegated authority for this purpose.40  It also prohibits undeclared shipper discounts, introduces 
sanctions for abuses of dominant position, stipul ates that shipping companies are to have a local 
representative in China (provision introduced in April 2007) and sets forth requirements concerning 
                                                      
38 CEO Jacques Saadé of CMA-CGM, the world's third largest liner company, and CEO C.C. Tung of 
Orient Overseas Lines, the ninth largest liner company.  
39 Containerisation Intern ational, December 2009. 
40 Pursuant to the Implementing Rules on the Filing of Freight Rates by the International Container 
Liner Service, which came into  effect on 1 August 2009.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 25 
 
 
  shipper consultations.41  Four groups have already been penalized to various degrees for not having 
complied with this legislation.  In 2008, China also introduced a general competition law banning 
horizontal price-fixing agreements (and therefore, pot entially, conferences), although how this links in 
with legislation of a specifically maritime nature is not yet clear.   
83. In Singapore , a 2006 Ministry of Transport decision confirmed anti-trust immunity for all 
liner agreements (including conferences, consortiums, and discussion agreements). 
84. In July 2009, APEC  discussed a consultant's report whic h advocated the continuation of anti-
trust immunity for shipowner agreements not in volving price fixing and an agreement filing and 
information exchange system for APEC members.   In this context, conferences would still be 
permitted providing that members were free to conclude services contracts. 
2. "Discussion" and "stabilization" agreements : 
85. "Stabilization" or "discussion" agreements (the terms are equivalent) are a more recent and 
flexible form of cooperation prompted by the emergence of independent shipowners.  Such 
agreements used to be known as "tolerated outsider agreements" and sought to establish a modus 
vivendi  between conference members, on the one hand,  and independent shipowners, on the other, 
through capacity and price coordination - outsiders  undertaking not to apply rates below a given 
margin in relation to those practised by the conference.   
86. With the decline and occasional dissolution of conferences, such agreements have gradually 
gained in importance, because they are often th e only forum where the players concerned can still 
coordinate amongst themselves (on the trans-Pacific r oute, for instance).  The agreements vary greatly 
in status from one jurisdiction to another.  
87. In particular, capacity stabilization agreements have always been banned for traffic to and 
from the European Community, and no w also in Australia, pursuant to the 2005 revision of Part X of 
the Trade Practice Act.  Elsewhere, they are to lerated under terms which, overall, are becoming 
increasingly stringent.  Thus, acting on a complaint file d by shippers in the United States, in October 
2003 the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) ruled that the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement 
(TSA) was to refrain from discussion and reach collective agreement on freight rates and the negotiation of contract terms for non vessel opera ting common carriers (NVOCCs, that is, freight 
forwarders which serve as maritime transport wholesal ers on behalf of the shippers), particularly as 
regards the scheduling of ra te increases and surcharges.
42  As mentioned earlier, under the legislation 
of Japan, Singapore and China stabilization agreemen ts are treated in the same way as conferences.  
88. From a regulatory standpoint, the distinction between the conferences on the one hand and the 
stabilization/discussion agreements on the other (where they continue to be applied side by side) is 
tending to fade and competition authorities are s eeking, on the one hand , to promote individual 
services contracts and, on the other, to preven t any group of shipowners from coordinating services 
contracts, freight rates and capacity regulation. 
                                                      
41 The implementing authority has assigned itself two tasks.  The first is to control abuses of dominant 
position by carriers.  The second is to maintain the stab ility of the sector and more generally the efficiency of 
export traffic.  Such stability and efficiency could in f act be threatened by excessive competition in periods of 
recession.  See Containerisation International, November 2009, p. 21. 
42 The TSA undertook to refrain from discussing capacity utilization for a period of three years, from 
exchanging information concerning individual shippers and from extending its geographical scope;  and to pay a 
fine of US$5.3 million.  The undertaking has since been extended nolens volens .  Along similar lines, NVOCCs 
were authorized in 2005 to enter into individual servi ces contracts with shipowners.  The FMC closely monitors 
this kind of agreement, and in September 2008, for ex ample, it initiated an inquiry concerning the Oceania 
Vessel Sharing Agreement, which covers traffic with New Zealand and Australia. S/C/W/315 
Page 26  
 
  3. Consortia 
89. Consortia are a form of purely technical c ooperation between shipowners operating joint 
services by means of technical, operational or commerc ial coordination (e.g. joint use of vessels, port 
installations and marketing organizations).  They  do not appear to fall under any specific legal 
category elsewhere than in European law and, other than in Europe, are treated like any other group of 
shipowners. In the European Community, they were  granted block exemption under regulations that 
were amended and extended on a regular basis since 1995.
43 
90. Of key importance in this period of overcapacity is  the fact that consortia retain the right of 
joint decision-making in respect of capacity adjustment.  
4. Vessel sharing agreements 
91. Vessel sharing agreements (VSAs), which are in fact a consortium subcategory or modality, 
have become a very frequent form of cooperation in the current economic crisis.  The aim is to 
maintain a commercial presence on a specified loop, or maritime route, whilst withdrawing a ship and 
redeploying it by reserving space on the vessel of a partner company, the partner in turn proceeding in 
the same way on another loop.  From the shippers' standpoint, the integrity of the service appears to 
be maintained, albeit at a slightly slower pace be cause of the reduced number of ships;  from the 
shipowners' standpoint, capacity trimming prevents  price collapse while allowing further economies 
of scale through the use of super Panamax vessels, capab le of carrying more than 6,000 containers.  In 
this connection, the VSA recently signed between the world's top three liner shipping companies - 
i.e. Maersk, MSC and CMA-CGM, which had not  operated under any alliance before - for the 
purposes of trans-Pacific traffic is an event of major significance. 
5. Alliances 
92. As in the air transport sector, global alliances ha ve emerged and in the main began to stabilize 
as from 1999.44  They are far less integrated than in air transport, however.   
                                                      
43 Commission Regulation No. 906/2009 of 28 September 2009, due to enter into effect in April 2010,  
takes account of the abolition of the liner conference system  and the ban on all joint fixing of freight rates (by, 
for example, repealing the provisions on joint voting in conferences and on independent tariff action, and 
prohibiting revenue, cargo and performance pools); exte nds regulatory coverage be yond container services 
alone (and hence includes consortia of roll-on roll-off vessels, cold-storage ships, conventional vessels carrying a variety of goods, and break-bulk ships);  unifies and lowers the market share threshold below which consortia 
enjoy a 30 per cent presumption of legality (under the previous system the threshold was set at 35 per cent for 
non-conference consortia and at 30 per cent for conferen ce consortia);  widens the market share calculation base 
by taking account of the shares held by each consortium member in other consortia operating on the same routes 
(consortia exceeding the threshold do not automatically become unlawful but are subject to a system of 
self-assessment of compatibility with the Treaty establishing the European Community);  extends the lock-in period from 18 to 24 months;  and eases procedural provisions.  
44 The only developments since then have been the withdrawal of the Anglo-Dutch PONL from Grand 
Alliance following its purchase by Maersk Denmark, th e recent closure of services by DSR Senator Line, the 
German subsidiary of Korea's Hanjin shipping company which also operated within the CKYH alliance, and the 
withdrawal of MISC, Malaysia's nati onal carrier, from Grand Alliance, which was announced in June 2009 and 
became effective at the end of 2009.  
The three main alliances are CKYH, made up of COSCO (China), K Line (Japan), Yang Ming 
(Chinese Taipei) and Hanjin (Republic of Korea);  New World Alliance, i.e. Neptune Orient Lines (Singapore), 
its US subsidiary American President Lines (Singapore/United States), Mitsui OSK Line (Japan) and Hyundai (Republic of Korea);  and Grand A lliance, consisting of Hapag–Lloyd (G ermany), NYK (Japan), OOCL (Hong 
Kong, China) and MISC (Malaysia).    S/C/W/315 
 Page 27 
 
 
  93. Alliances cooperate with each other on occasi on. New World Alliance and Grand Alliance, 
for example, exchange slots on Asia-Europe r outes and use common services on the route between 
Asia and the east coast of the United States via the Panama Canal and on Asia-Black Sea voyages.  
Furthermore, unlike airlines, the sector’s top thr ee companies (in terms of vessel numbers, tonnage 
and turnover), i.e. Maersk Denmark, the Italia n-Swiss group MSC and France's CMA-CGM, are not 
alliance hubs but prefer to cooperate on an ad hoc  basis depending on geographical location.  They 
often operate independently a nd tend to favour, at least as far as Maersk and CMA-CGM are 
concerned, external growth over cooperation.  
94. Depending on the jurisdiction concerned, allian ces may be likened to consortia or a set of 
consortia (as in the European Union, where share in  the alliance is measured in each regional market) 
or regarded as agreements between shi powners that do not fix freight rates. 
6. Tramp pools and cabotage 
95. A tramp pool brings together a number of vessel s that are under different ownership but of a 
similar type and is operated under a single administra tion.  Cabotage means all kinds of traffic from 
port to port within a single State.  Apparently onl y the European Union has laid down specific rules 
governing these particular forms of cooperation and tra ffic.  The United States, for instance, treats or 
bans them, as the case may be, as it would treat any shipowner agreement.45  
96. The European Communities, pur suant to Regulation (EC) No. 1419/2006 of 25 September 
2006, applies the EC Treaty’s general rules on co mpetition to both segments.  In 2008, a set of 
guidelines recalled that such forms of cooperati on would not be entitled to individual exemption 
unless they fulfilled the following four cumulative cond itions:  Efficiency gains;  passing through  
part of the gains to the shippers in the form of  lower prices or new logistical solutions; no less 
restrictive solution available for achieving such gains;  and no elimination of competition for a 
substantial share of the market. 
7.   Mergers and acquisitions 
97. Even though concentration in the maritime transport sector has accelerated sharply, as 
outlined above, the level of concentration remains relatively low in comparison with other industrial 
or services sectors.  This explains why there has been moderate intervention by regulators under 
general competition rules.  (There is no maritime -specific legislation.)  The only noteworthy case to 
date is a requirement that Maersk sell its interests in the SAECS consortium operating the 
South Africa and Indian Ocean routes following its takeover of PONL, because of what was deemed 
to be Maersk's newly dominant position in the area.46 
98. On certain routes, however, concentration may have led to a lowering of competition.  The 
Liner Connectivity Index developed by UNCTAD pr ovides detailed information in this respect.47 
C. REGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS IN RELATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT , MARITIME SAFETY AND 
MARITIME SOCIAL LEGISLATION  
99. These three apparently disparate regulatory ar eas can be dealt with together because they 
come under the same implementing authority ("Port St ate Control" and the related national legislation 
                                                      
45 See, for example, proceedings to prevent abuse of dominant position in the tanker sector 
(Jo Tankers/Odjfell/Stolt-Nielsen case, 2005-2007), and in traffic between the continent and Puerto Rico 
(proceedings ongoing since 2008). 
46 See http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m3829_20050729_20212_en.pdf  
47 See http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/sdtetlbmisc20072_en.pdf , page 4.  S/C/W/315 
Page 28  
 
  and plurilateral standards).  Two of these areas, moreover, are regulated by the same body, the 
International Maritime Organization (IMO). 
1. Work of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 
100. From an institutional perspective, it is difficu lt to separate maritime safety and environmental 
issues, since global standards in both areas are issu ed by one and the same organization, the IMO.  
Over the last fifteen years, the IMO has adopted numerous amendments  to its major conventions:  the 
International Convention for the Safety of Life at  Sea (SOLAS Convention) of 1960, the International 
Convention on Standards of Training, Certifi cation and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW 
Convention), the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL 
Convention) of 1973, and the International Conve ntion on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 
(CLC Convention).   
101. Of particular note among these amendments are those to Annex VI to the MARPOL 
Convention of April 2008, which seek to reduce sulphur oxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) 
emissions.
48  IMO activities with a notable commercial impact on the sector include the adoption in 
May 2009 of the Hong Kong International Conven tion for the Safe and Environmentally Sound 
Recycling of Ships.  This Convention is based on standards applied to ship dismantling facilities and 
on the regular and particularly rigorous surveying of individual vessels with regard to hazardous 
materials used in their construction, with a fina l survey being conducted prior to recycling.  The 
ratification threshold for the entry into for ce of this Convention has yet to be reached.49  
102. The Kyoto Protocol mandated the IMO to identify mechanisms for the limitation and 
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.  Accordi ng to the Second IMO Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Study 
2009, international shipping accounts for 2.7 per cent of CO 2 emissions (3.3 per cent when taken 
together with domestic shipping and fisheries) a nd this volume is expected to increase dramatically 
(by 150 to 250 per cent by 2050, accord ing to the same study) unless remedial action is taken.  In the 
framework of the aforementioned mandate, the IM O has developed three sets of measures to cut 
vessel energy consumption by means of advanced information technology, manage vessel weight, 
reduce speed and introduce weather routing.50   
103. The IMO has also discussed the introduction of market-based instruments to reduce emissions 
and has fixed December 2011 as the deadline for reach ing an agreement on such instruments.  Talks 
have so far come up against two stumbling blocks.  Th e first is the choice of the type of instrument:  
whether this should be an upstream tax on fuel, a cap-and-trade emission trading scheme or a hybrid 
system.  The second is how to dovetail the princi ple under the Kyoto Protocol of "common but 
differentiated responsibilities" with the IMO's "no more favourable treatment" clause, which 
                                                      
48 With regard to SOx emissions, the Convention establishes both a global sulphur cap and a lower 
sulphur limit applicable in environmentally sensitive areas  (Emission Control Areas, ECAs), such as the Baltic 
Sea and, in the near future, the North American coastlin es.  The Convention provides for a gradual reduction of 
these limits by 2025, with an interim review in 2018.   As far as NOx emissions  are concerned, emission 
reduction kits will be required to be installed on vesse ls constructed between 1990 and 1999 in order to bring 
them to a pre-determined level; vessels constructed as of 2011 will be required to reduce their NOx emissions by between 15.5 and 21.8 per cent depending on engine cruising speed; and finally vessels constructed in or 
after 2016 will be required to reduce NOx emissions by 80 per cent in relation to 2008 levels.   
49 The Convention enters into force 24 months afte r the date on which 15 States, representing at least 
40 per cent of the world fleet, with their combined ma ximum annual ship recycling volume constituting not less 
than three per cent of their combined tonnage, have ratified it without reservation. 
50 The IMO has put these three measures (Guidance for the development of a Ship Energy Efficiency 
Management Plan (SEEMP), the Energy  Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) and the Energy Efficiency 
Design Index (EEDI)) to its Members with a view to  their implementation on a voluntary, trial basis.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 29 
 
 
  postulates equality of treatment for all vessels.  The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 
December 2009 failed to achieve specific results on ma ritime transport emissions.  The IMO schedule 
for addressing this issue therefore remains unchanged.  
104. These three examples do not by any means exhaus t the IMO's environmental activities, which 
also include work on the regulation of ballast waste disposal, the composition of anti-fouling paint 
and waste treatment. 
2. Work of the International Labour Organization (ILO) 
105. In 2005, the ILO adopted the Maritime Labour  Convention, a so-called "super Convention", 
which consolidates the maritime social standards adopt ed over a period of more than fifty years.  The 
ratification thresholds for its entry into force have not yet been reached.  
3. Regional and national developments 
106. A major development in relation to the implem entation of safety, environmental and social 
regulations is the proliferation of memoranda of understanding on "Port State Control".  An informal 
data exchange system provides MoU members with th e results of inspections conducted in their ports 
to ensure compliance with IMO safety standards a nd ILO social standards.  Such systems enable 
vessels that are repeat offenders to be targeted and detained in port until  violations have been 
remedied.  Launched in Europe in 1980 with th e Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State 
Control51, this practice has become almost universal give n that the nine memoranda currently in force 
(Paris MoU, Black Sea MoU52, Caribbean MoU53, Indian Ocean MoU54, Abuja MoU55, Viña del Mar 
Agreement56, Mediterranean MoU57, Tokyo MoU58 and Riyadh MoU59) encompass the majority of 
coastal and/or maritime States.   
107. In the United States, coastguards apply mutatis mutandis  the same safety regulations as the 
regional MoUs and cooperate closely with them.60   
                                                      
51 Current members:  Belgium;  Bulgaria; Canada;  Croatia;  Cyprus;  Denmark;  Estonia;  Finland,; 
France; Germany;  Greece;  Iceland;  Irel and;  Italy;  Latvia;  Lithuania;  Ma lta;  Netherlands;  Norway;  Poland;  
Portugal;  Russian Federation;  Slovenia;  Spain;  Sweden and United Kingdom. 
52 Current members:  Bulgaria;  Georgia;  Romania;  Russian Federation;  Turkey and Ukraine. 
53 Current members:  Anguilla;  Antigua and Barbuda;  Aruba;  Bahamas;  Barbados;  Bermuda;  
British Virgin Islands;  Cayman Islands;  Cuba;  Dominica;  Dominican Republic;  Grenada;  Guyana;  Haiti;  
Jamaica;  Montserrat;  Netherlands Antilles;  Saint K itts and Nevis;  Saint Lucia;  Saint Vincent and the 
Grenadines;  Suriname;  Trinidad and Tobago;  and Turks and Caicos Islands. 
54 Current members:  Australia;  Eritrea;  France;  Indi a;  Iran;  Kenya;  Maldives;  Mauritius;  Oman;  
South Africa;  Sri Lanka;  Sudan;  Tanzania and Yemen. 
55 Current members:  Benin;  Cape Verde;  Congo;  Côte d'Ivoire;  Gabon;  Gambia;  Ghana;  Guinea;  
Liberia;  Mauritania;  Namibia;  Nigeria;  Senegal;  Sierra Leone;  South Africa and Togo. 
56 Current members:  Argentina;  Bolivia;  Brazil;  Chile;  Colombia;  Cuba;  Ecuador;  Honduras;  
Mexico;  Panama;  Peru;  Uruguay and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). 
57 Current members:  Algeria;  Cyprus;  Egypt;  Israel;  Jordan;  Lebanon;  Malta;  Morocco;  Tunisia 
and Turkey. 
58 Current members:  Australia;  Canada;  Chile;  Chin a;  Fiji;  Hong Kong, Chin a;  Indonesia;  Japan;  
Korea (Rep. of);  Malaysia, New Zealand;  Papua New Guinea;  Philippines;  Russian Federation;  Singapore;  
Thailand;  Vanuatu and Viet Nam. 
59 Current members:  Saudi Arabia;  Bahrain;  United Arab Emirates;  Kuwait;  Oman and Qatar. 
60 The California Air Resource Board (CARB) has placed a 0.5 per cent restriction on sulphur 
emissions within a 29-mile radius of its coasts.  This regulation was overturned by a court decision in February 2008.  Moreover, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have offered shipowners subsidies to cover the cost 
differential involved in using low-sulphur-content fuel.  The use of cold ironing is now mandatory in California. S/C/W/315 
Page 30  
 
  108. In the wake of the Ievoli Sun, Erika and Pr estige disasters, the European Union adopted a 
myriad of environmental and maritime safety measures.  Of particular note are the three Erika "legislative packages", which have helped bri ng forward the original IMO schedule for the 
elimination of single-hull oil tankers.
61  With regard to greenhouse gas emissions from maritime 
transport, the European Union, in preparation fo r the Copenhagen Conference, had set itself the goal 
of achieving a 20 per cent reduction in em issions in 2020 in relation to 2005.62  Finally, it is worth 
noting the growing impact of European environmen tal directives on port development projects; which 
have been affected by complaints over their failure to comply with these directives.    
D. R EGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS IN RELATION TO DOMESTIC SUPPORT  
109. To the Secretariat's knowledge, there is no global inventory of maritime transport sector 
support schemes.63  However, a number of general trends may be identified.  In particular, while 
direct subsidies have become scarce, fiscal instruments have come into general use.   
110. One explanation for this phenomenon is the in creasingly widespread use of the tonnage tax 
system, whereby the corporate tax of shipping compan ies is not calculated on the basis of their profits, 
but as a flat rate based on fleet tonnage.  This system  is at least partially modelled on the tax systems 
applied by open registries, such as Panama and Libe ria.  It is most frequently independent of the 
national flag, given that the bulk of international shipping activity is carried out by the controlled 
fleet, not by domestically flagged vessels.  The system also benefits the flagged vessels of other Members.  Another explanation for the relative impor tance of tax measures am id the array of support 
mechanisms is the existence of tax exemption schemes for high-reve nue maritime investments, under 
joint-ownership (vessel-share) arrangements manage d by specialized financial institutions.   
111. The importance of "duty-free inputs and free zones", as mentioned earlier on, is explained by 
the fact that vessels are often imported free of cu stoms duties and that the ports of registry are 
sometimes located in free zones. A pattern which is emerging, is the increase in environmental 
subsidies, for example those granted by certain Amer ican ports to encourage emission control or by 
the European Union to encourage a transfer from road to maritime transport, which is less polluting 
and less harmful to infrastructure (Marco Polo programme, the trans-European transport network 
policy (TEN-T) programme, Motorways of the Sea, Short Sea Shipping).  Several countries are considering adopting similar support programmes. 
                                                     
 
61 For further details see  
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/tran sport/waterborne_transport/l24230_en.htm  for the Erika I package;  
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/tran sport/waterborne_transport/l24242_en.htm  for the Erika II package; 
http://ec.europa.eu/transpor t/maritime/safety/third_mariti me_safety_package_en.htm  for the Erika III package; 
and http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/tr ansport/waterborne_transport/index_en.htm ;  for EU maritime 
safety policy as a whole. 
62 Prior to the Conference,  the Commission had also indicated th at, in the absence of significant 
progress at those talks, it would table in 2010, for implementation in 2011/2012, legislative proposals for a regional emission trading scheme similar to the one set up in 2008 for air transport.   
63 The closest approximation to such an inventory is contained in WTO Trade Policy Reviews (WTO 
document S/WPGR/W/25/Add.5 of 27 March 2007, "Subsidies for Services Sectors, Information Contained in WTO Trade Policy Reviews").  It lists 32 WTO Members which apply various types of support schemes: direct 
grants (Australia;  Solomon Islands;  Czech Republic;  Pa kistan;  India;  Turkey;  Singapore;  Israel;  US), 
preferential credit and guarantees (Thailand;  US;  India) , tax incentives (Egypt;  India;  Jamaica;  Peru;  
Singapore;  Turkey;  US;  Brazil;  Japan;  Mauritius;  Mexico;  Barbados;  Australia;  Venezuela;  Hong Kong, 
China;  Indonesia;  Honduras;  Sri Lanka;  EU;  Philippi nes;  Malaysia;  Djibouti;  Tanzania), duty-free inputs 
and free zones (Egypt;  Jamaica;  Papua New Guinea;  Peru;  Turkey;  Pakistan;  Barbados;  Indonesia;  Honduras;  Philippines;  Djibouti;  Chinese Taipei;  Tanzania) and other and unspecified measures (EU;  
Republic of Korea;  US;  Mauritius;  India;  Australia;  UAE).    S/C/W/315 
 Page 31 
 
 
  112. The current economic crisis has already had an  impact on sector support.  In Korea and 
China, for example, maritime investment funds ow ned/controlled by the public sector have been set 
up to purchase vessels from, and then l ease them back to, national shipowners.64  In Germany, the 
plan to rescue the company Hapag-Lloyd by its sh areholders, which include the Land of Hamburg, 
has been backed by State guarantees,  and this system could shortly be  applied to other shipowners and 
certain Kommanditgesellschaften .65  The Singapore shipping company Neptune Orient Lines 
benefited from a billion-dollar recapitalization by its major shareholder, the sovereign fund 
Temasek.66  Reports suggest that the French and Argentine shipping companies CMA-CGM and 
Maruba could also benefit from in the near futu re support measures, the terms and conditions of 
which have yet to be precisely determined.67  
113. "Second registries", discussed above (paras 30, 31,and 34), could also be deemed to come 
under the heading of support measures. 
E. DEVELOPMENTS AFFECTING MARKET ACCESS  
114. The port sector deserves special attention becau se, as mentioned earlier, major steps have 
been taken over the past ten years towards privati zation and opening up to forei gn participation.  This 
has given rise to considerable regulatory action.  Conversely, the regulatory framework for ocean-
borne or land based maritime transport activities doe s not appear to have undergone any significant 
changes, other than that the trend towards broader liberalization has continued - albeit at a slower pace 
than in the 1980s and 1990s and with reversals. 
1. Regulatory developments in the port sector 
115. Regulatory activity in the port sector has chie fly consisted in turning service ports into 
landlord ports, that is, moving from a situation wher e ports provided all port services, in particular 
cargo handling, to a situation where they merely supply and manage heavy infrastructure (wharves, 
jetties, lighthouses, navigational aid system).  Light  infrastructure such as cranes, forklifts and hard 
standing stacking areas are left in the hands of con cessionaires or private operators.  Ports also assume 
responsibility for traffic control inside the perimeter of the harbour and other tasks falling within their 
purview (quarantine, disinfection, management of compulsory ballast disposal facilities, etc.), but 
they no longer perform any operational functions. 
116. This not only presupposes the existence of genera l legislation authorizing the establishment of 
a framework of this kind, but also  intense contractual activity to ne gotiate the terms and conditions of 
concessions.  It also generally presupposes a great d eal of negotiation with the social partners to 
establish social schemes, redefine the status of workers/personnel and organize labour (centralized 
management of dock-workers and crane operators, round-the-clock availability seven days a week, 
team numbers and rules of employment, and so forth).68  
                                                      
64 For Korea see notably Fairplay Magazine  August 2009 p. 28 and October 2009,  p. 30;  Financial  
Times, 8 July 2009  and  Containerization International, August 2009, p. 24. For China Fairplay Magazine 
October 2009, p. 43 and Bloomberg 3 July 2009.  
65 Among other sources see Fairplay Magazine, 19 November 2009 p. 15, 21 January 2010, p. 34, 4 
February 2010, p. 18;  Financial Times, 9 October 2009 and 27 October 2009.  
66 See for instance http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGC00116720090602 . 
67 For Maruba see Containerization International, November 2009, p. 15, and Fairplay Magazine, 
18 February 2010, p. 16; for CMA-CGM among other sources see Financial Times, 30 September 2009, and 
Containerization International, January 2010, p. 9. 
68 For further details see the World Bank's Port Reform Toolkit, which provides a comprehensive 
overview of the sector and the regulatory and contractual activities to be undertaken by States seeking to 
privatize and open up their port activities to foreign investors. S/C/W/315 
Page 32  
 
  117. In 2001, the European Commission's a ttempted to liberalize port services, inter alia,  by 
authorizing self-handling by ship crews in EC ports and harmonizing concession terms and conditions.  After long debates, in 2007 the Commission opted for a soft law approach in the form of a 
"toolbox" including, among other things, environmental guidelines, measures to streamline administrative aspects of the logistics chain, guide lines on State aid, extension of the "transparency" 
directive (Directive 2000/52/CE ) and a document spec ifying how the Treaty applies to port handling 
and techno-nautical services. 
118. The difficulties encountered in some countries by foreign port operators (no pre-qualification 
for tendering, compulsory resale of assets acquired following a merger/acquisition) point to continued 
political and economic sensitivities.  
2. Regulatory developments in the maritime transport sector 
119. The only systematic attempt to identify GATS- consistent market access, national treatment 
and MFN treatment schemes applied to maritime transport was made by the Negotiating Group on 
Maritime Transport Services between 1994 and 19 96, using a questionnaire sent out by the WTO 
Secretariat.
69  The 15 year-old replies to this questionnai re, which are already incomplete in terms of 
geographical coverage, can no longer be  used as a reliable information base .  In addition, the 
respective shares of the major suppliers have changed considerably.   
120. In a preliminary analysis carried out in 1998, the WTO Secretariat considered the sector as 
being highly liberalized compared to many other services sectors, including transport sectors.  In the 
main, bulk transport was not subject to restrictions, other than in a couple of countries.  Unfortunately, 
however, the number of available resources has dwindled significantly since the late 1990s.70   
121. As regards liner services, the UN Convention on a Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences71, 
which entered into force in 1983 to open the restri cted "club" of existing conferences through a cargo 
sharing arrangement (the famous 40-40-20 formula) la rgely proved a failure.  In spite of its wide 
membership (more than 70 contracting parties), th e Code was not actually applied to more than a 
marginal part of global traffic, i.e. that between  Western Europe and West Africa, which accounts for 
less than 3 per cent of the world liner trade.  Finally, in 1988 application of the Code to this particular 
traffic was deemed unlawful by the EC's competitio n authorities, on the grounds of abuse of dominant 
position by the conferences.  In other regions, the conference system - which today has all but disappeared - coexisted with a series of bilateral car go sharing agreements that either were the result 
                                                     
 
69 WTO document S/NGMTS/W/2 of 21 October 19 94.  The questionnaire received 37 replies (the 
European Communities counting as one).  At the time this represented 47 pe r cent of global tonnage in terms of 
registration and more than 80 per cent in terms of ownership. 
70 The Consultative Shipping Group (CSG) is an informal grouping of several OECD member States 
with maritime interests, whose aim is to coordinate dipl omatic initiatives in response to protectionist measures 
or actions ( http://cottonclubdc.org/CSG.htm );  GSG's archives are not open to  the general public.  The Council 
of European and Japanese National Shipowners' Associati ons (CENSA), which used to produce a "list of sins", 
discontinued this activity at the turn of the century .  The OECD's Maritime Transport Committee (CTM-MTC), 
which provided a forum fo r exchanging views on market access is sues and produced publicly available 
documents, was disbanded in 2003.  One of the most recent OECD studies on acces s to maritime transport 
markets was carried out between 1998 and 2002.  It examines the practices of OECD members, among other 
things, but does provide concrete data.  See:  Regulat ory Issues in International Maritime Transport, OECD 
Report, August 2001, available at:  http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/63/2065436.pdf .  (In particular: 
paras 146-152 (pp. 36-37) on the various bilateral cargo access regulations;  para s 153-156 (pp. 37-38) and 
Annex C, paras 53-58 (pp. 88-90), on the respective shares of unilateral cargo reservations;  paras 157-165 
(pp. 38-39) on registration conditions;  paras 166-174 (pp. 39-41) on cabotage;  and paras 175-178 (p. 41) on national security measures.  
71 United Nations Treaty Series, 1983.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 33 
 
 
  of historical or colonial links or were developed to deal with then State trading economies such as 
China and the USSR.  Some bilateral agreements we re also inspired by import substitution concepts 
similar to those underpinning the liner code (La tin America).  These frameworks have gradually 
eroded as well.72 
122. In terms of market access, maritime transport is the sphere par excellence of dormant 
legislation (regarding domestic, inte rnational unilateral, or internati onal bilateral cargo reservation in 
particular) and waivers.  There are at least two e xplanations for this situation.  First, obsolete 
legislation was not necessarily repealed or de nounced (in the case of bilateral cargo-sharing 
agreements, for example, when policies changed).73 Second, even where such measures are still 
applied, lobbying pressure, including from adversely a ffected domestic user industries, has translated 
into a wide array of exceptions. The impact of mar itime protectionism thus te nds to be overestimated 
in studies that rely on information d escribing formally existing regimes.  
123. As stated by the then Secretary of the OECD  Maritime Transport Committee at the seminar 
on logistics services held at the WTO on 29 Sept ember 2004: "The OECD undertook an extensive 
review of regulatory issues in maritime transport a nd concluded that, by and large, maritime transport 
was already quite liberal, at least in practice if not  always with commensurate legal obligations.  On 
most trades there is relatively free trade access to cargo and relatively few impediments to the provision of blue water shipping services.  For ex ample, while the UN liner code of conduct and its 
cargo sharing provisions is still in force, very few States are applying it.  Equally, the reservation of 
cargoes under bilateral agreements or government- or  national security-linked cargoes is very limited 
these days.  Cabotage remains in place in many ec onomies, even if not always rigidly applied, 
although in some cases it can cause serious disruptio ns to efforts to provide door-to-door services."
74 
124. Nevertheless, in some cases, cargo reservation cl auses are still strictly applied without being 
called in question either at the political level or by  affected companies, which may view them as a 
normal feature of the operating environmen t.  And the effects may be significant.75 
125. The general state of affairs does not appear to have changed vastly in recent years, apart from 
certain legal adjustments.  A case in point is Re gulation (EC) No. 1490/2007 of 11 December 2007, 
repealing Regulation (EEC) No. 954/79, known as th e "Brussels package", which had harmonized the 
reservations filed by those EC members that had ratif ied the Code of Conduct.  In other words, since 
the Code governs liner conferences - which no long er exist on the routes to and from the EC - the 
signatories are no longer able to meet their obliga tions under the Code (i.e. Belgium, Czech Republic, 
Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain).76  The member States concerned 
are about to begin the process of denunciation of this  instrument which, in some respects, marks the 
end of an era. 
                                                      
72 For further details, see WTO document S/C/W/62 of 16 November 1998.  
73 There are also cases, however, wher e actually applied regimes are more restrictive that what is on the 
books.  According to Kheir-El-Din, Ghoneim and Sakr, "[ t]he major problem related to the maritime sector is 
the non-transparency where the laws s tipulate certain liberal issues, however reality shows restrictive practices". 
See "Maritime Transport Sector in  Egypt", Research No. FEM22-02, Bilkent University, Centre for 
International Economics.  Available at:  http://www.femise.org/PDF/ao22/FEM2202.pdf  
74 Statement by Mr Daniel Scorpecci  at the seminar on logistics services held at the WTO on 29 
September 2004, available from the WTO Secretariat on request. 
75 As stated in a 2003 UNCTAD document, "[i]n maritime transport, cargo reservation regimes tend to 
make it impossible to use available capacity efficiently because it is prohibited to combine national, regional and 
intercontinental liner services so that they form part  of a single global network". (Development of Multimodal 
Transport and Logistics Services, Report by the UNCTAD  Secretariat, TD/B/COM3/EM20/2, 16 July 2003.) 
76  Norway was in a similar situation in view of its obligations within the European Economic Area. S/C/W/315 
Page 34  
 
  126. A closer examination of the preferences granted under regional trade agreements (RTAs) 
suggests that these may prove significant in relation to GATS commitments.
77  R T A s  t e n d  r e p l a c e  
sectoral bilateral agreements, which have almost entirely disappeared, and extend coverage in terms 
of subsectors (in particular auxiliary services) and m odes of supply (in particular mode 3).  They no 
longer involve cargo reservations, but mainly govern land transport c onditions and access to auxiliary 
services.  The same paradigm shift can also be seen  in recent bilateral agreements of a strictly 
maritime nature, such as those concluded between  the United States and China, and the European 
Union and China. 
3. Studies on the determinants of transports costs (including regulation) and their impact 
on trade  
127. Over the past 15 years there has been a genuine growth of awareness among governments, 
multilateral institutions and researchers of the impact of transport costs on trade.  A range of OECD 
and World Bank studies compare tariff levels with transport costs.  This provides some useful 
information, bearing in mind, however, that some  of these costs are unavoidable and, unlike customs 
duties, not susceptible to government action (volume of traffic, distance, shipowners' production costs 
and profits, and so on).   
128. Econometric research has advanced at an unequa l pace.  On the one hand, considerable 
progress has been made in modelling transport cost determinants and their impact on trade.  These 
costs are no longer roughly estimated in relation to di stance, but take into account parameters such as 
time, trade imbalances, vessel size, trade volume, competition, infrastructure and risk.  A recently 
created database brings together, through extrapolati on, data on maritime traffic at the HS-6 digit 
level for all country pairs, in order to assess, through regression, the impact of each of these factors 
individually and combined.78   
129. The modelling of the impact of policy measures, however, has not yet developed to the same 
extent.  Available studies address the subject generica lly either in conjunction with competition policy 
considerations (Fink, Mattoo, Neagu, 2002)79, by calculating restrictiveness indices on the basis of 
GATS concepts (McGuire, Schuele, Smith, 2000)80 and estimating tariff equivalent on this basis 
(Kang, 2000, and Kimura, Ando and Fuji, 2004)81 or through case studies such as those relating to 
                                                      
77  Marchetti and Roy scored, on a scale of 1 to 100, GATS commitments (12), offers made in current 
negotiations at the WTO (23) and 'best' preferential trad e agreement commitments (57) .  Maritime transport is 
one of the sectors in which the difference between th e scores for GATS commitmen ts and preferential trade 
agreements is the greatest.  See Juan Marchetti and Ma rtin Roy, "Opening Markets for Trade in Services.  
Countries and Sectors in Bilateral and WTO Negotiations", Cambridge University Press, 2009, Table 2.8, p. 90,  
78 See, for example, TAD/TC/WP(2008)10/REV1, "C larifying Trade Costs in Maritime Transport", 
2010.  Earlier research in this area include the studie s by Limão and Venables, "Infrastructure, Geographical 
Disadvantage, Transport Costs and Trade", World Bank Economic Review, Vol. 15 No. 3, paragraphs 451-479, 
2001;  Clark, Dollar and Micco, "Port Efficiency, Maritime Tran sport Costs, and Bilateral Trade", Journal of 
Development Economics, No. 75, 2004;  as well as Wilmsmeier, Hoffman and Sanchez, "The Impact of Port 
Characteristics on International Mariti me Transport Costs" in Port Economics, Research in Transportation 
Economics, volume 16, edited by Kevin Cullinane and Wayne Talley, Elsevier, 2006. 
79 "Trade in International Maritime Services:  How Much Does Policy Matter?", World Bank 
Economic Review, Vol. 16, 2002. 
80 "Restrictiveness of International Tr ade in Maritime Services", in Impediments to Trade in Services:  
Measurement and Policy Implications, edited by C. Findlay and T. Warren, London, Routledge, pp. 172-188. 
81 Kang (2000), "Price Impact of Restrictions on Maritime Transport Services", in Impediments to 
Trade in Services:  Measurem ent and Policy Implications ( op.cit .) and Kimura, Ando and Fujii (2004), 
"Estimating the Ad Valorem  Equivalent of Barriers to Foreign Direct Investment in the Maritime and Air 
Transportation Service Sectors in Russia", working paper, World Bank, Washington.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 35 
 
 
  Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey (Achy, Boughzala, Kheir-El-Din and Togan, 2005).82  T h e  
results of these studies are striking.  Restrictive government policies considerably influence not only 
transport costs, but the economy as a whole.  The results of these studies are striking.  Given the strategic role of the sector, restrictive government  policies considerably influence not only transport 
costs, but the economy as a whole.
83  
130. A study to be published shortly examines the development of maritime preferences between 
1960 and 2009 on the basis of a sample of 30 countries or territories.  The study looks at 224 bilateral maritime agreements, one multilateral instrument (the UN Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences), 
and 49 free trade agreements containing maritime transport clauses.
 84 The results suggest, inter alia , 
the absence of a direct line and of a flag-flyi ng vessel (and/or of vessels operated by a national 
shipping company) on bilateral routes makes reserva tions legally and materially impracticable in 37 
of 45 cases.  In effect, the authorities concerned do not have the means to impose cargo sharing agreements on the third countries which tranship the goods.  In other words, hub and spoke systems 
and the transhipments they involv e have largely deprived bilateral cargo sharing agreements of 
practical significance.   
131. Based on currently available information, it is  virtually impossible to develop a reasonably 
comprehensive typology of measures that, according to shipowners, adversely affect maritime trade.  Nevertheless, based on specialized journals
85 and some official sources it may be inferred that:  
(a) such measures are, for the most part, concentrat ed in developing countries and, in particular, West 
Africa, East Africa, South Asia and, more generally speaking, countries that are not WTO Members;  (b) that they include both maritime measures prope r and measures relating to on-shore establishments; 
and (c) that include difficulties with customs tr eatment and the like as well as market access 
difficulties in the strict sense of the term. 
III. GATS COMMITMENTS AND MFN EXEMPTIONS 
132. Commitments undertaken in respect of international maritime transport, auxiliary services and 
access to and use of port infrastructure, unlike existing commitments in other sectors, are not 
necessarily definitive.  The negotiation of commitments  and lists of MFN exemptions in the maritime 
transport sector is subject to particular conditions as specified in the Decision of the Council for Trade 
in Services of 3 July 1996 (S/L/24).   
133. This Decision provides that the maritime nego tiations would resume with the commencement 
of comprehensive negotiations on services five years af ter the entry into force of the results of the 
Uruguay Round, which has now become the Doha R ound, on the basis of "existing or improved" 
offers.  It also stipulates that "a Member may improv e, modify or withdraw all or part of its specific 
commitments in this sector, during a period of sixt y days the end of which shall coincide with the 
                                                     
 
82 "Impact of Liberalization of Trade in Serv ices:  Banking, Telecommunications and Maritime 
Transport in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisi a and Turkey", Research No. FEM22- 02, Bilkent University, Centre for 
International Economics, Turkey.  Available at:  http://www.femise.org/PDF/ao22/FEM2202.pdf  
83 Relevant observations are also contained in the reports of government auditors in various countries.  
For examples, see footnote 72 above and Chuyang Liu, "M aritime Transport Services in the Law of the Sea and 
the World Trade Organization", Peter Lang, 2009, pp. 15-18.  The World Bank is trying to model the impact of restrictions on trade in services and to this end has begun, within a broader framework that goes beyond the 
maritime transport sect or, to collect data systematically not only  on market access (in the broad sense of the 
term) but on certain aspects of internal regulations such as  licensing procedures.  This work is still in progress.  
84 Fabien Bertho, "Preferential Agreements in Maritime  Transport, the Current an d the Outdated", to be 
published shortly at:  http://www.gem.sciences-po.fr /content/research_topics/tr ade/transportation_EN.htm .  
Bertho's study dwells on the methodology used by Marchetti and Roy, footnote 77 above. 
 85 See, in particular, the trade journals Fairplay and Containerisation International and the annual 
reports of the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA). S/C/W/315 
Page 36  
 
  conclusion of the negotiations  referred to in paragraph 1" and th at "during the same period, Members 
shall finalize their positions relating to MFN Exemp tions in this sector".  A similar approach had 
already been used once for maritime trans port and twice for financial services.   
134. Furthermore, the Decision suspends, until the c onclusion of the negotiations, the application 
of the MFN clause to the subsectors concerned, except in those subsectors where Members have 
undertaken commitments.  It also provides for a pea ce clause and review by the Council for Trade in 
Services. 
135. The analysis of maritime transport commitments is made difficult by two sector-specific 
classification problems. 
136. The first problem relates to the coexistence of two commonly used forms of classification:  
(a) systems combining the Central Product Classification (CPC) system and the Services Sectoral 
Classification List (MTN/GNS/W/120); and (b) the Maritime Model Schedule (MMS).  Though there is a certain degree of convergence be tween the services listed in each of  the classification systems, in 
the absence of an official correspondence table a pproved by Members, the commitments undertaken 
under each of the systems must be presented separately.
86  With Members sometimes using the two 
classifications simultaneously, fortunately in a limited number of cases only, the entries listed in the 
following Tables are therefore purely indicative.  The s ituation is further complicated by the fact that 
some Members have added their own sui generis  definitions;  such cases will be examined separately. 
137. Second, there are differences in treatment of auxiliary services.  While the draft model 
schedule refers to auxiliary services in a purely ma ritime context, the CPC/W/120 system views them 
in some cases as exclusively maritime-focused (11.A.c. Rental of vessels with crew, 
11.A.d. Maintenance and repair of vessels,  11.A.e. Pushing and towing services, and 
11.A.f. Supporting services for maritime transport) and in other cases as auxiliary to all modes of 
transport (headings under 11.H. Services auxiliary to all modes of transport).87  Where a commitment 
on services auxiliary to all modes of transport (section 11.H. of document MTN.GNS/W/120) does not explicitly exclude the maritime sector (by stating, for example, "except for maritime transport"), it 
should, in principle, be read as covering services a uxiliary to maritime transport as well.  The section 
'Services auxiliary to all modes of transport' most notably includes port handling, a subsector 
fundamental to maritime transport, which, as e xplained above, has developed considerably over the 
last 15 years.
88 
138. Tables 10 and 11 provide an overview of market access and national treatment commitments 
regarding maritime transport;  additional commitme nts made in respect of access to and the use of 
port infrastructure and multimodal services;  and additional sui generis  commitments on maritime 
transport. 
                                                      
86 This consideration does not, however, apply to th e international maritime transport sector, where a 
correlation exists between the two classification systems.  Members using the CPC have, for the most part, 
defined maritime transport as ex cluding cabotage, as in the MMS. 
87 a. Cargo handling services;  b. Storage and warehous e services;  c. Freight tr ansport agency services;  
and d. Other. 
88 In order to avoid any undue interpretation of the scope of commitments, this Background Note 
refrains from describing generic commitments under sectio n 11.H. as these are, in any case, covered by the Note 
on Logistics Services.  For the same reason, the latter Note does not include commitments on auxiliary services 
in cases where schedules specify that  such commitments are limited to ma ritime transport services alone.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 37 
 
 
  Table 10:  Market access and national treatm ent commitments regarding maritime transport 
Sector or subsector Member Total 
1. International maritime transport (11.A. a. and b. less cabotage / "first pillar" of model schedule)  
1.a. International 
maritime passenger 
transport Aruba; Australia;  Benin (+ cabotage not excl uded);  Cape Verde;  China;  Croatia 
(+ cabotage excluded only for mode 1);  Cu ba (+ cabotage not excluded);  Egypt;  
Gambia;  Ghana;  Iceland;  Indonesia;   Jordan;  Korea;  Kyrgyz Republic 
(+ cabotage not excluded);  Latvia (+ cabotage not excluded);  Malaysia;  Malta;  
Moldova; Netherlands Antilles;  New Zeala nd;  Norway;  Oman (+ cabotage not 
excluded);  Papua New Guinea (+ cabotag e not excluded);  Peru;  Philippines;  
Saint Kitts and Nevis;  Saint Lucia;  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines;  Saudi 
Arabia;  Sierra Leone;  Thailand;  Turkey;  Ukrain e;  Viet Nam. 35 
1.b. International 
maritime freight 
transport Antigua and Barbuda;  Aruba;  Australia ;  Benin (+ cabotage not excluded);  
Cape Verde;  China;  Croatia (+ cabot age excluded only for mode 1);  Cuba;  
Egypt;  Ghana;  Hong Kong, China;  Icel and (+ cabotage explicitly included);  
Indonesia;  Jamaica (+ cabotage not excluded );  Jordan;  Korea;  Kyrgyz Republic 
(+ cabotage not excluded);  Latvia (+ cabotage not excluded);  Malaysia;  Malta;  
Moldova;  Netherlands Antilles;  New Z ealand;  Nigeria;  Norway;  Oman 
(+ cabotage not excluded);  Papua New Guinea (+ cabotage not excluded);  
Philippines;  Saint Kitts and Nevis;  Saint Lucia;  Saint Vincent and the 
Grenadines;  Saudi Arabia;  Sierra Leone;  Singapore;  Thailand;  Turkey;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 38 
2.  Other maritime transport services (11. c. , d., e., f. / "second pillar" of model schedule / sui generis   
      commitments)  
2.a. CPC 11.A. c., d., e. and f   
11.A. c. Rental of 
vessels with crew, 
CPC 7213 Albania;  Australia;  Benin;   Cape Verde;  Croatia (+ cabotage excluded only for 
mode 1);  Gambia;  Hong Kong, China;  Jordan;  Kyrgyz Republic;  Latvia;  
Moldova;  Nigeria;  Saudi Arabia;  Si erra Leone;  Turkey;  Philippines. 16 
11.A. d. Maintenance 
and repair of vessels, 
CPC 8868 Albania;  Antigua and Barbuda;  Croatia;  Cuba;  Estonia;  Gambia;  Hong Kong, 
China;  Hungary;  Jordan;  Korea;  Kyrgyz  Republic;  Latvia;  Moldova;  Nigeria;  
Saudi Arabia;  Sierra Leone;  Slovak Republic;  Trinidad and Tobago;  Turkey. 19 
11.A. e. Pushing and 
towing services, 
CPC 7214 Croatia;  Gambia;  Japan;  Kyrgyz Re public;  Latvia;  Lithuania;  Moldova;  
Sierra Leone. 8 
11.A. f. Supporting 
services for maritime 
transport, CPC 745** A l b a n i a ;   C a p e  V e r d e ;   C r o a t i a ;   G a m b i a ;   J a p a n ;   K y r g y z  R e p u b l i c ;   L a t v i a ;   
Moldova;  Oman;  Senegal;  Sierra  Leone;  Trinidad and Tobago. 12 
2.b. "Second pillar" of model schedule:  Maritime auxiliary services   
Maritime cargo 
handling services Aruba;  Benin;  Cape Verde;  China;  Cuba;  Ecuador;  Ghana;  Hong Kong, 
China;  Iceland;  Korea;  Netherlands Antilles;  Norway;  Ukraine;  Venezuela;  
Viet Nam. 15 
Storage and 
warehousing services Aruba;  Australia;  Benin;  Canada;  Cape Verde;  Cuba;  Ecuador;  Ghana;  Hong 
Kong, China;  Iceland;  Jordan;  Korea;   Netherlands Antille s;  New Zealand;  
Norway;  Ukraine;  Venezuela. 17 
Customs clearance 
services Canada;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong,  China;  Iceland;  Korea;  Norway;  
Ukraine;  Vietnam. 9 
Container station and 
depot services Canada;  Cape Verde;  China;  Ghana;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  Korea;  
Norway;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 10 
Maritime agency 
services Aruba;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  Japan;  Korea;  
Netherlands Antilles;  Norway;  Ukraine. 10 
Maritime freight 
forwarding services Netherlands Antilles;  Aruba;  Australia;  Ca nada;  Cape Verde;  Korea;  Iceland;  
New Zealand;  Norway;  Thailand;  Ukraine. 11 
3. Services defined 
in a sui generis  Australia (preshipment inspection);  Be nin (freight transport agency services, 
customs clearance services, forwarding se rvices);  Ecuador (freight transport 11 S/C/W/315 
Page 38  
 
  Sector or subsector Member Total 
manner  or in other 
parts of the CPC but 
limited to maritime 
transport agency services, other supporting and auxiliary transport services);  
Egypt (dredging);  Iceland (other supporti ng and auxiliary transport services);  
Korea (ship brokerage);  Lithuania (maritime agency services);  Norway (other 
supporting and auxiliary transport services);  Singapore (maritime agency 
services, ship brokerage services);  Thailand (international towing, shore reception 
facilities - collection of waste/oily water fro m ships, port captain's services attached 
to specific foreign vessels,  marine surveys and classification societies for the 
purpose of providing accurate documentation and certification of vessels);  Trinidad 
and Tobago (navigational aid and communication /meteorological services  for 
maritime purposes). 
 
Table 11:  Additional commit ments on maritime transport 
Services Member Total 
1. Provision of port services as defined in model schedule  
Pilotage Albania;  Cape Verde;  China;  H ong Kong, China;  Iceland;  Japan;  Korea;  
Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Saudi Arabia;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 14 
Towing and tug 
assistance Albania;  Cambodia;  Canada;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  
Japan;  Jordan;  Korea;  Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  
Viet Nam. 16 
Provisioning, fuelling 
and watering Albania;  Cambodia;  Canada;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  
Japan;  Jordan;  Korea;  Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  
Viet Nam. 16 
Garbage collecting and 
ballast waste disposal Albania;  Cambodia;  Canada;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  
Japan;  Jordan;  Korea;  Malaysia;  Norw ay;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet 
Nam. 16 
Port Captain's services Albania;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, Ch ina; Iceland;  Japan;  Jordan;  
Korea;  Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 14 
Navigation aids Albani a;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  Iceland;  Jordan;  Korea;  
Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Saudi Arabia;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 14 
Shore-based operational 
services essential to ship 
operations including 
communications, water 
and electrical supplies Albania;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong,  China;  Iceland;  Japan;  Jordan;  
Korea;  Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 14 
Emergency repair 
facilities Albania;  Cambodia;  Canada;  Cape Verde;  China; Hong Kong,  China;  Iceland;  
Japan;  Jordan;  Korea;  Malaysia;  Norway;  Oman;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  
Viet Nam. 16 
Anchorage, berth and 
berthing services Albania;  Cape Verde;  China;  Hong Kong,  China;  Iceland;  Japan;  Korea;  
Malaysia;  Norway;  Saudi Arabia;  Singapore;  Ukraine;  Viet Nam. 13 
2. Provision of port 
services defined in a 
sui generis manner Saudi Arabia (port and waterway operation services, vessel salvage and refloating 
services, other supporting services for wate r transport);  Cambodia (lightering and 
water taxi services, ship agencies, custom brokers, stevedoring and terminal 
services, and surveying and classification services);  Canada ( idem );  Ghana 
(fire-fighting and ambulance services);  Iceland (container handling and storage 
services, freight transport);  Norway ( idem );  Tonga (lightering and water taxi 
services, ship agencies, custom brokers, stevedoring and terminal services, and 
surveying and classification services). 7 
3. Access to and use 
of multimodal 
transport services  Canada;  Iceland;  Norway;  Tonga;  Vi et Nam (only through maritime agencies). 5 
4. Other additional 
commitments Albania (privatization). 1  S/C/W/315 
 Page 39 
 
 
   
139. The relatively low number of commitments  (i.e. between 10 and 38 depending on the 
subsector) is remarkable, given that maritime tran sport is generally considered as one of the most 
highly liberalized services.  A closer look at Ta bles 10 and 11 reveals a considerable degree of 
dispersion among the options offered not only by the combination of two classification systems, each 
providing for a vast number of services as well as sub-options in the market access, national treatment 
and additional commitments columns,  but also by the addition of sui generis  services defined by 
Members.  It is thus impossible to identify clear patterns of commitments as is the case in the logistics 
sector, for example (see Background Note on Logistics Services). 
140. The diversity of commitments may reflect the specificities of national legislation, firmly 
entrenched over time, particularly as regards the granting of flag rights and port operation 
requirements.  It is nonetheless surprising in view of the harmonization in this highly globalized sector that has taken place over the last 50 year s.  The question may arises whether commitments 
simply reflect legislation or international agreemen ts that may still exist, but are no longer applied, 
such as the United Nations Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences. 
141. Two schedules contain limitations across the whole transport sector, including maritime 
transport as well.  In one case, the limitations are on ownership only, while in the second case they relate not only to ownership but also to mode 4 and the training of personnel recruited locally. 
142. As regards the international maritime transport
 sector, 35 Members have undertaken 
commitments with respect to the passenger trans port and 38 for freight transport. In ten cases 
cabotage has not been excluded.89   
143. Concerning mode 1, two Members having made  commitments in the sector have not bound 
passenger transport, and three have done likewise with respect to freight transport.  One Member has 
not bound modes 1 or 2 as regards national treat ment, but has undertaken commitments, without 
limitations, in the market access column. 
144. Five Members have registered  unilateral cargo reservations either on government shipments, 
in four cases, or, in another case, on a series of specific products coming under bulk shipping.  In 
one case, the reservation takes the milder form of a right of first refusal.  Two Members have made bilateral cargo reservations, in the first case under the UN Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences and 
in the second, under bilateral agreements (market acc ess, mode 1).  In the market access column, one 
of these Members has excluded traffic between its territory and two specifically named countries, and has also entered an MFN exemption limited to ten y ears to cover such traffic and maritime relations 
with a third country.  As regards national tr eatment, one Member has scheduled a nationality 
requirement for all general agents representing foreign ship-owners. 
145. In mode 3, the wording of the commitmen ts varies widely.  Commercial presence is 
sometimes described in general terms without any distinction between estab lishment for the purposes 
of national flag registration and on shore establishment.
90  There is a wide variety of entries covering  
                                                      
89 Sometimes, especially where th e full MMS has been used, the scope of cabotage is defined in a 
footnote.  One Member has specified in the body of its  schedule that it includes under cabotage shuttle services 
between shore and offshore oilrigs.  Another has limited its passenger transport commitments to tourist traffic 
alone, which is subject to authorization and licensing. 
90 In this connection, one Member has schedule d a joint venture requir ement and a 49 per cent 
limitation on capital ownership, whilst another has entered a licensing and registration requirement.  Conversely, 
in other cases the commitments specify national flag regi stration requirements, either in the market access or in 
the national treatment column.  These entries do not necessarily reflect the use of the MMS, and are sometimes 
accompanied by details pertaining to the on-shore commercial presence re quirement.  In some cases it is 
difficult to see exactly what pertains to one system or the other.   S/C/W/315 
Page 40  
 
  such registration requirements.  In one case, the pos sibility has been left unbound, while in another, 
the system has been divided into "conventional" national flag (more restrictive) and "second" or 
"international" flag registration.  In three ca ses, ownership by a domestic company is required, 
without any stated restrictions on foreign ownership in the company or potentially relevant details of 
the legislation in question.  One Member has scheduled a minimum tonnage requirement, coupled 
with the requirement that the ships be used solely fo r international traffic.  In a fair number of cases, 
nationality requirements apply in the case of natura l persons, or a majority domestic shareholding 
and/or joint venture requirement in the case of legal persons, and sometim es there is a nationality 
requirement for the majority of members of the board  of directors and the general manager, reflecting 
the "conventional" state of maritime legislation.  With this in view, the MMS suggests that the 
national flag registration requirement be "unbound ", a recommendation which most of the Members 
concerned have followed.  Eight Members ha ve nonetheless bound national flag registration 
requirements without limitations. 
146. Three Members have entered nationality requirement s for ships' crews or part of ships' crews 
such as captains and officers in mode 3, whereas the MMS for exam ple deals with such issues under 
mode 4. As a national treatment limitation, one Me mber has scheduled the requirement of residence 
of a representative for the purposes of implementing liner traffic competition policy.  Another Member has entered a similar limitation in the ma rket access column, without specifying the aim of 
the government policy pursued.  Several cases refe r to general legislation relating either to the 
merchant marine or to establishment in general, without specifying any restrictions that might be 
stipulated in such legislation. 
147. Commitments on onshore commercial presence are subject to significant variation.  Many 
Members have scheduled full commitments in that  regard, following the recommendations contained 
in the model schedule.  In contrast, one Member has not undertaken bindings, while another has limited its commitments to branch offices alone, a nd a third has entered a joint venture requirement 
with a 51 per cent foreign equity limitation, coupled  with limitations on the scope of operations and 
on the number of licences (restricted to eight).   
148. Four Members have scheduled a national treatme nt limitation to cover business tax treatment, 
and another has done likewise to cover the lower ra tes benefiting domestic ship-owners for pilotage 
services, berthing services and docking fees. 
149. Commitments on mode 4 reflect a significant degree of sectoral specificity.  The MMS 
suggests breaking them down into two parts, i.e.  the status of ships' crews, which the MMS 
recommends entering as "unbound", and "other  forms of commercial presence", defined as 
shore-based establishments of ship-owners. 
150. While distinguishing between crews and shor e-based establishments, one Member has bound 
neither;  another has set a 95 per cent nationality re quirement for crews, along with the requirement 
that 90 per cent of the amount of wages be allocated  to nationals;  a third has entered the requirement 
that four-fifths of personnel em ployed be nationals;  and a fourth has scheduled a length of 
employment requirement for foreign sailors aboard  certain vessels.  Numerous Members have not 
bound crew-related requirements an d have referred to horizontal commitments with respect to 
shore-based personnel. 
151. Sixteen Members have undertaken commi tments on rental of vessels with crew
.  One has 
limited the scope to international traffic alone;  another to voyage and tim e charters;  two Members 
have not bound mode 1;  one has entered the requi rement, in mode 3, to employ 50 per cent of 
national personnel;  a further Member has scheduled  a national treatment limitation to cover business 
tax treatment;  and one has reserved the right to grant authorization on a case-by-case basis.  The other Members have bound this subsector w ithout any particular limitations.  S/C/W/315 
 Page 41 
 
 
  152. Maintenance and repair of vessels  has been committed by 19 Members.  Two have limited the 
sectoral scope to certain types of repair;  and five have not bound mode 1.  In mode 2, one Member 
has subjected its carriers to an authorization regime, entered in the national treatment column.  In mode 3, one Member refers to ge neral legislation on establishment without specifying any restrictions 
that might be stipulated in such legislation;  another has restricted access to nationals, whether 
physical or legal persons;  and a third has stipulat ed a joint-venture requirement or incorporation as a 
joint-stock company.  The other Members have  bound this subsector without any particular 
limitations. 
153. As regards pushing and towing services
, eight Members have undertaken commitments in this 
subsector.  Two have not bound trade in mode 1, and a further Member has left mode 3 unbound.  
One Member has inscribed a domestic incorpora tion requirement and refe rred to limits in port 
capacity which might call for restrictions;  also, a concession was required to supply such services.  
The other Members have undertaken commitmen ts without any particular limitations. 
154. Supporting services for maritime transport (CPC745** ) have been scheduled by 12 Members.  
Three have limited their commitments to segments of  this subsector, namely:  shipping agency, cargo 
handling and forwarding and ship handling services in  the first case;  tonnage measurement services 
in the second;  and vessel salvage and refloating, wa tering, fuelling and garbage collecting services in 
the third.  One Member has not bound these services in mode 1.  In mode 3, one Member has entered the same limitations concerning domestic inco rporation, limits in port capacity and concession 
requirement as noted above.  Another Member has scheduled a 51 per cent foreign equity limitation 
regarding the supply of such services.  The othe r Members have bound this subsector without any 
particular limitations. 
155. As regards cargo handling
 services, 15 Members have undertaken commitments.  In terms of 
sector-specific reservations, two Members have lim ited their commitments to transhipment operations 
- one of the two also having restricted operations to two ports only and to certa in products;  a third has 
excluded certain types of product;  and a fourth h as limited its commitments to container handling.  
One Member has referred to limits in port capacity  and any ensuing restrictions as well as to a 
concession requirement.  Nine Members have not bound port handling services in mode 1.  Three 
Members have scheduled monopolies in mode 3;  and,  also under mode 3, one Member has entered a 
50 per cent minimum share of national personnel.  Two Members have stipulated a joint-venture 
requirement - one of the two specifying a 50 per cent foreign equity limitation.  The other Members have not scheduled any particular limitations. 
156. Storage and warehousing services
 have drawn commitments from 17 Members.  One has 
limited operations to a single type of product and anot her to a single type of operation;  eleven have 
not bound mode 1.  In mode 3, one Member ha s entered a national preference with respect to 
acquisition and new establishment.  Another h as scheduled a monopoly.  Two Members have 
indicated that limited port capacity might call for re strictions and that a concession was required to 
supply such services.  The other Members have bound this subsector without any particular 
limitations. 
157. As regards customs clearance services , nine Members have undertaken commitments.  One 
has indicated, again, that limited port capacity necessary might call for restrictions and that a concession was required;  another has entere d, under modes 1 and 2, a commercial presence 
requirement for legal persons and a residency require ment for natural persons;  six Members have not 
bound mode 1.  In mode 3, one Member has en tered a domestic incor poration or partnership 
requirement;  another has not bound this mode;  an d two Members have stipulated a joint-venture 
requirement - one of them specifying a 51 per cen t foreign equity limitation.  The other Members 
have not inscribed any particular limitations. S/C/W/315 
Page 42  
 
  158. Ten Members have undertaken commitment s on container station and depot services
. In one 
case this was subject, again, to limitations concerning port capacity and a concession requirement;  four Members have not bound mode 1;  one Member  has scheduled a monopoly in mode 3;  and two 
Members have imposed a joint-venture requirement  - one of them specifying a 51 per cent foreign 
equity limitation.  No other particul ar limitations have been scheduled. 
159. Ten Members also scheduled maritime agency services
.  One has not bound mode 1;  another 
has entered a 50 per cent of national personnel requi rement in mode 3;  a third has imposed a 
joint-venture requirement with a 50 per cent foreign equity limitation;  and a fourth has stipulated a 
joint-venture requirement or incorporation as a joint- stock company.  In one case, where the definition 
is consistent with the CPC (in that it excludes other modes of transport) but not the MMS, the 
Member has scheduled an authorization requirement coupled with a requirement to speak the national 
language.  Other Members have bound this subsector without any particular limitations. 
160. Eleven Members undertook commitments on  maritime freight forwarding services .  One has 
not bound mode 1;  another has entered a 50 per cent  of national personnel requirement in mode 3;  
and a third has stipulated a joint-venture require ment or incorporation as a joint-stock company. 
161. Eleven Members have undertaken commi tments on services defined either sui generis  or 
using the CPC/W/120 codes under section 11.H.  (Services auxiliary to all modes of transport), but 
have limited them to maritime transport. 
162. As regards additional commitments on access to and the use of port infrastructure , 
three groups of services can be identified.  Sixteen  Members have undertaken commitments in respect 
of the first group, comprising towing and tug assistance, provisioning, garbage collecting, and 
emergency repairs .  Fourteen commitments have been made for the second group, which covers more 
"sensitive" services, and where a certain amount of  discrimination may exist in terms of national 
treatment ( pilotage, port captain's services, naviga tion aids, essential shore-based services ).  The 
most sensitive of the nine categories proposed in th e MMS (one which appears in square brackets in 
that document) is anchorage, berth and berthing services , with 13 Members having undertaken 
commitments in this area.  There are also additional commitments on services defined sui generis . 
163. Interestingly, no more than five Members ha ve undertaken additional commitments on access 
to and the use of multimodal services . 
164. With regard to MFN exemptions , a sector-specific feature needs to be recalled.  Paragraph 4 
of Decision S/L/24, which concluded the work carried out by the Negotiating Group on Maritime 
Transport Services (NGMTS) from 1995 to 1996, susp ended the MFN requirement - and, thus, the 
need to list departures - in three subsectors:  in ternational shipping, aux iliary services, and access to 
and use of port facilities.  As an exception to th is suspension, paragraph 5 of the same Decision 
stipulates that the suspension "shall not apply to  any specific commitment on maritime transport 
services which is inscribed in a Member's Schedule". 
165. Many Members, however, have not withdrawn the exemptions that they scheduled during the 
Uruguay Round or the NGMTS negotiations, even t hough some of these exemptions are no longer 
necessary in the absence of a maritime commitment.  Nonetheless, whatever their legal status, these 
MFN exemptions give some idea of the type of non-MFN treatment that may be encountered with 
regard to maritime transport. 
166. Statistically, preferential access to cargo appear s to be the main motive for MFN exemptions 
in maritime transport services.  It should be noted that several African member countries of the 
Ministerial Conference of West and Central African States on Maritime Transport (MINCONMAR) 
have jointly scheduled a number of exemptions:  one relating to regional preferential treatment in  S/C/W/315 
 Page 43 
 
 
  respect of cabotage for a renewable ten-year  period (eight Members);  one covering the 
40/40/20 cargo sharing formula stipulated in the UN Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences 
(eight Members);  one covering the 50/50 sharing of bulk cargo (seven Members) and specialized cargo;  and one covering all legislation that seeks to  promote the infant maritime transport industry 
(seven Members). 
167. Four other WTO Members, parties to the UN Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences, have 
also listed related MFN exemptions.  Other MFN ex emptions cover bilateral or regional cargo-sharing 
agreements or provisions on reciprocal or preferential access to international cargo outside the scope of the UN Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences (a total of eight exemptions scheduled by six 
Members).  
168. Further, there are two MFN exemptions cove ring various modes of transport, including 
maritime transport, one of which concerns regional preferential access to cargo, and the other non-MFN treatment in an even broader, unspecified context.  In a third case, the MFN exemption is 
purely maritime-related, but covers a very broad area ("procedures, ch arges and [...] regulations [...] 
applicable for ships" operating in a certain geogr aphical zone) which may possibly encompass cargo 
reservations. 
169. In addition to the pan-African exemption alr eady mentioned, six MFN exemptions concern 
preferential and/or reciprocal access to cabotage.  These exemptions are sometimes consolidated into 
a single text covering bilateral or multilateral cargo reservations in international traffic, under the UN 
Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences;  in one case they also cover non-MFN treatment in respect of 
port access and commercial presence.  
170. One Member has scheduled an MFN exemption covering preferential treatment granted to 
certain foreign shipping companies for a five-year pe riod.  Another Member has entered an exemption 
covering bilateral agreements that allow for the establishment of "en tities to engage in usual business 
[...] for ships owned or operated by carriers of the parties concerned".  One Member has scheduled an 
exemption covering the reciprocity requirement applicable to the renting of vessels with crew.  
Another has registered an exemption regarding cer tain shore-based activities and more specifically 
storage and warehouse services, freight forwarding services, inland trucking services linked to maritime transport, and container station and depot services, so as to cover treatment based on reciprocity as well as existing and future bilateral agreements.  
171. One Member has scheduled an exemption covering  reciprocity provisions on self-handling.  
Another Member has registered an MFN exemp tion covering possible re taliatory measures.  
Three exemptions have also been entered to cover preferential treatment or treatment subject to 
reciprocity in relation to taxation.  Lastly, there is one MFN exemption relating to mode 4 and the preferential recruitment of merchant navy o fficers from a limited number of listed countries. 
__________