The Hindu : International : "Marine electronic highway"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 11, 2005

International

International

"Marine electronic highway"

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, MARCH 10. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has launched a "marine electronic highway project" to enhance the safety of shipping along the Straits of Malacca in South-East Asia.

The project relates to the sharing of critical security-related information and also intelligence among select countries which, when fully operational, is likely to include India and some major trading nations.

Action plan

The IMO is also formulating a comprehensive "action plan", which could be endorsed by the littoral states — Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore — as also the major users of this busy international waterway.

It is estimated that almost a quarter of the world's non-oil trade and nearly half of the global oil shipments are facilitated along the Straits of Malacca every year. Besides the continuing need to protect this sea lane from pirates, the relative new concern is that of guarding it against international terrorism, with maritime traffic and strategic port facilities having been identified as possible targets of terrorists.

Singapore has suggested that member-countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations' Regional Forum (ARF) should "move beyond dialogue on maritime security and work towards conducting an ARF maritime security exercise in the near future".

India, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are among the ARF "participant-countries" (as the members are known).

Regional cooperation

While the proposed "maritime security exercise" will have the battle against international terrorism as a key focus, 16 regional countries, including India, have already entered into the "Regional Cooperation Agreement on Anti-Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP)". In the context of this Japanese initiative, Singapore has offered to set up the "ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre" in the city-state "very soon".

While Singapore's role was outlined by its Defence Minister, Teo Chee Hean, at an ARF offcial-level meeting here last week, the IMO Secretary General, Efthimios Mitropoulos, spelt out the organisation's maritime security agenda for the Straits of Malacca. Mr. Mitropoulos said the "IMO is helping to promote" the "Marine Electronic Highway Project" for security along the Straits of Malacca "with commendable support and cooperation from all three littoral states". The project "has the potential to be an extremely valuable asset" to the users of the waterway by providing for intelligence-sharing.

Noting that an international ministerial conference was proposed to be held in Jakarta later this year on maritime security issues, the IMO chief said the idea was to evolve an "action plan designed to take the issue of security in the Malacca Strait forward in the most efficient and effective manner". The steps were not immediately identified.

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