Japan’s government has drawn up the drafts of guidelines and revised ministry ordinances, which contain penalties and variation between the verified gross mass and actual weight of a container, for the smooth implementation of the International Maritime Organization's looming Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS, container weight rules.
The two revised ordinances of the transport ministry, which contain administrative punishments, including fines, for violators of the new international rules, are scheduled to be promulgated on April 1. The SOLAS container weight rules take effect on July 1.
Separately from the draft of the two revised ministry ordinances, Japan’s government has compiled the draft of guidelines for shippers and other parties concerned regarding the SOLAS container weight rules.
“The finalized guidelines will contain a specific figure and it will probably be somewhere between ±2 percent and ±5 percent,” a transport ministry official told JOC.com.
The revised transport ministry ordinances allow violators of the SOLAS container weight rules, including shippers who fail to provide VGM figures to carriers and container terminal operators as required by the VGM mandate, to face fines of up to 300,000 yen (about $2,500) per case per each.
Shippers will also face fines if they provide false VGM figures and third parties acting on behalf of shippers will be fined if they submit false VGM figures to the shippers.
Any entity that verifies the gross mass of a container without reporting its name to, or being registered with, the transport ministry will also be fined.
The transport ministry official told JOC.com that the specific amount of a fine “will be determined on a case-by-case basis.”
Stakeholders will have until early March to submit comments and suggestions to Japan’s transport ministry about implementing the new rules. The draft guidelines allow a third party acting on behalf of a shipper, as well as the shipper, to provide the VGM of a container to a carrier and a container terminal operator through a shipping document.
A shipper who verifies the gross mass of a container on its own will be required to report its name to the ministry, while a third party that does the verification work on a shipper’s behalf will have to be registered with the ministry after screening.
If a third party acting on a shipper’s behalf is either a subsidiary of the shipper or a parent company of the shipper, it will not have to be registered with the ministry.
If the transport ministry decides that the container weight verification work by a shipper or a third party acting on the shipper’s behalf is inappropriate, it will be able to issue a business improvement order.
If a shipper or a third party acting on the shipper’s behalf fails to comply with the business improvement order, the ministry will be able to order the shipper or the third party to stop weighing.
The draft guidelines also allow the ministry to conduct on-site inspections, as necessary, to ensure the full implementation of the SOLAS container weight rules.
It is still unclear when the guidelines for shippers and other concerned parties regarding the SOLAS container weight rules will be finalized and made public.
Japan’s maritime authorities are among the many globally working to establish protocols ahead of the VGM mandate's entry into force.
The mandate requires any shipper specified in a master bill of lading to provide a VGM as a condition for loading a packed container onto a ship for export.
Under the SOLAS rules, a shipper can use either one of the two optional methods for verifying the gross mass of a packed container.
One method is weighing a loaded container, while the other is weighing all cargo items and packing and securing materials and adding the container’s tare weight to the sum.
Fuente: Joc.com, Hisane Masaki, http://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/transportation-policy/international-transportation-policy/japan-unveils-enforcement-plans-imo-container-weight-rules_20160205.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily%25newswire&mgs1=f22fm6suXy
