• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.24
• /
• pp.51-72
• /
• 2004

Over the past fifty years, the share of the World's shipping fleet operating under open registry has grown from 4 % to almost half of the total tonnage. While there has been strong opposition based on the costs of maritime disasters and opposition both from the traditional maritime nations, which have suffered erosion of their fleets, and from labour unions, which point to worker exploitation, the shipping companies have found the greater operational and financial flexibility which accompanies open registry to be a considerable attraction The paper consists of seven sections. Section 1 explains the background and of the study. Section 2 reviews the characteristics and definition of FOC. Section 3 is to identify ship register categories and their competitive conditions. Section 4 tackles the emerging forces of globalisation-the advent of FOC. Section 5 deals with legal maritime framework. Section 6 tackles the current structure and characteristics of FOC vessels. Some concluding comments follow in the last section.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.43-61
• /
• 1999

To ensure ship's safety and preserve the marine environment from ship, IMO(International Maritime Organization) has been making much efforts. Nevertheless there are still many possibilities threatening ship's safety and the marine environment. Many vessels navigate at sea in lack of standard required by the International Convention relevant to ship's safety and the protection of marine environment. Even though the administration is responsible for perfect and continuous control for safety of ship, it cannot has jurisdiction over ships hoist its flag reasonably at all times. So the Port State has strengthened the Port State Control(PSC) activity as one step of eliminating sub-standard vessels. In the light of the fact that mentioned above, this study deals with PSC activity in Korea and port of Pusan. Total 582 ships, inspected in port of Pusan from 1st January 1998 to 30th September 1999, were analyzed in various aspect and extracted results as follows : \circled1 The inspection rate in Korea was much lower than the other states taking part in Tokyo MOU, \circled2 For flag state, the ships belong to flag of convenience(FOC) had much more deficiencies than non-convenience flag ships, \circled3 For ship type, 39 number of general dry cargo ship were detained at Pusan with serious deficiencies, \circled4 For deficiency item, the items such as life saving appliances, safety in general, navigation, load lines and fire-fighting appliances were occupied over 71.7% of total number of deficiencies, \circled5 In Asia-Pacific region, Korea was one of flags with detention percentages exceeding 3-year(1996~1998) rolling average detention percentage. Average detention rate of Korean vessels was 6.73% which was over 0.24% of average detention rate(6.49%) in Asia-Pacific region. These results may reflect to improve the performance of PSC inspection for foreign vessels and are useful for preparing PSC inspection for ocean-going ships registered in Korea.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.1-23
• /
• 2014

Although 'the International Ship Registration Act' has been enacted in Korea as of 1997, its effect is still in question to make shipowners and operators flag in or reflag because of insufficient incentives for them. Therefore, 'the Special Law for Jeju Free International City' has been established and the system of 'Special Ship Registration Zone' has also been enforced. Despite this, few studies were carried out to measure the relative importance of factors for Jeju International Ship Register yet. Against this backdrop, the purposes of this study are firstly, to investigate a relative importance of Jeju International Ship Registration System using AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) and secondly, to compare the characteristics of Flags of Convenience(FOC) with International Ship Register(ISR) which was adopted by several Far East Asia Countries(e.g., China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Japan). Moreover, this study aims to compare FOC with ISR in terms of shipping policy, ship management, and expenses and tax policy. In this paper, the factors were constructed with four high levels consisting of twenty one low levels to evaluate Jeju International Ship Register by utilizing Expert's brainstorming and AHP. According to the results, it is critical to expand the exemption and tax-related expenses, and also manage foreign-related systems systemically. This study provides important implications to maintain the tonnage tax system for ships effectively as well as to intensify the competitiveness of Jeju International Ship Register System.