Phase II of IMO’s Maritime Technology Cooperation Centre Project Announced

The IMO and the European Commission (EC) have announced a second phase of the Global Maritime Technology Cooperation Centres Network (GMN) project, with funding from the EU.

The aim of the second phase is to upscale the work of the five regional centres, with a particular emphasis on pilot demonstrations aimed at achieving quantifiable reductions in GHG emissions.

The GMN Phase II project follows the successful Phase I which established the five Maritime Technology Cooperation Centres (MTCCs), in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific. During Phase I, resources were focused on building the human and institutional capacities in maritime administrations and port authorities and delivering small-scale pilot demonstration projects.

The €10 million, four-year Phase II project will focus on facilitating the introduction of portside energy efficiency measures and technologies and the retrofitting of domestic vessels (under 5,000 GT). The phase II project will assign greater resources to promote public-private sector partnerships and the long-term sustainability of the MTCC's.

The GMN MTCC project supports developing countries, especially least developed countries and small-island developing states, in meeting the IMO's energy-efficiency and greenhouse-gas reduction targets.