CESS 2018
Press Release

Committee for Expertise of Shipbuilding Specifics (CESS) held its
annual meeting in Kanazawa, Japan, on 25th and 26th July, 2018, where
the member associations, Japan, Europe, China, Korea and U.S.A.,
gathered to discuss key issues faced by the global shipbuilding industry.
The meeting was hosted by Japan. The delegates reviewed CESS’sactivities from the past year and the activities expected to come, andexchanged views to seek further cooperation in voicing common
opinions on shipbuilding issues, where changes in the businessenvironment were commonly perceived as being tough.
The new aspect brought forward in the CESS activities resulting fromthe discussion taken by the Top Executive Meeting of JECKU last year
has changed the routine of the discussions, starting from the brief
review and sharing of the information on the activities of Active
Shipbuilding Experts’ Federation (ASEF) related to technology, since theactivities of CESS were naturally combined with that of ASEF to someconsiderable extent, and collaboration between ASEF and SEA Europe
are ongoing.
The role of CESS remains to act as a platform to share views anddevelop common positions on important issues, including regulatory
matters, in line with the framework agreed in the previous year.
It was noted that ASEF activities have progressed as it was planned in
the previous year to reach the third (and final) year of the trial period

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CESS 2018
Press Releaseand commencing its post-trial activities from the coming Autumn, andthat efforts are being promoted to further enhance its performance
which the attendants acknowledged.
An assessment on Port State Control (PSC) activities as part of the Parisand Tokyo MOU’s and United States Coast Guard during 2017 was made.
It was noted that all the regions were steadily carrying out their port
state control activities as in previous years which suggests that thequality of the ships are generally improving. The report showed that theshipbuilding quality related deficiencies were kept at low levels, andthat ship detentions have remained steady in relation to previous years.
The ship types generally having aged ships, such as the reefer fleet andthe general cargo fleet have shown above average detention rates as
was noted from years before. An improvement of these detentions may
be possible as the older ships will be replaced in the future by new ships
or, other ship types. Furthermore it was commonly perceived thatfurther benchmarking efforts and assessments on information may be
helpful to identify other areas of PSC activities for elimination of
sub-standard ships.
The meeting went on to explore areas where the shipbuilding industry
can jointly work on evolutionary ideas to positively face the difficulties
that needed to be addressed in the severe business environment, andto keep a healthy competitive market in place.
The discussion covered the ways of eliminating sub-standard ships,
ways of positively addressing the environmental issues, ways ofdeveloping associations with new or different stakeholders in themarket, and ways for refining the market analysis, and possible
collaboration with ASEF activities.

2CESS 2018
Press Release

CESS will report on its activities at the forthcoming meeting of theJECKU (Shipbuilding) Top Executive Meeting scheduled to take place in
Shima City, Japan on 25October, 2018, where guidance of the CESS
activities in the coming years will be sought from the top executives.
25th July, 2018
Dave Iwamoto
CESS Chairman
c/o The Shipbuilders’ Association of Japan,
3rd Fl., The Japan Gas Association Bldg., 1-15-12, Toranomon,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0001, Japansuzuki@sajn.or.jp

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