Ship Registration - Bahamas Maritime Authority, Croatian Register of Shipping, Flag of Convenience, Flag State, Foreign Ship Registry ACT, (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: Bahamas Maritime Authority, Croatian Register of Shipping, Flag of convenience, Flag state, Foreign Ship Registry Act, IMO number, International Merchant Marine Registry of Belize, Liberian companies, List of flags of convenience, Malta Maritime Authority, Merchant Navy (United Kingdom), Norwegian International Ship Register, Norwegian Ship Register, Norwegian Ship Registers, Port State Control, Ship registration in Hong Kong, Tanzania Zanzibar International Register of Shipping, The Revolution of Ship Registration in Hong Kong, Tuvalu Ship Registry. Excerpt: The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the regulations of the owner's country. The closely related term open registry is used to describe an organization that will register ships owned by foreign entities. The term "flag of convenience" has been in use since the 1950s, and it refers to the civil ensign a ship flies in order to indicate its country of registration or flag state. A ship operates under the laws of its flag state, and these laws are used if the ship is involved in an admiralty case. The modern practice of flagging ships in foreign countries began in the 1920s in the United States, when shipowners frustrated by increased regulations and rising labor costs began to register their ships to Panama. The use of open registries steadily increased, and in 1968, Liberia grew to surpass the United Kingdom as the world's largest shipping register. As of 2009, more than half of the world's merchant ships were registered with open registries, and the Panama, Liberia, and Marshall Islands flags accounted for almost...