The New Year: A Time to Look Back and Look Ahead

As we enter the New Year, it is always good to take a look at how far we have come this past year and look ahead to the new one. The latest issue of SRS e-Bulletin will bring readers' attention to some highlights of our work in 2017 and a peek of what 2018 will bring. 2017 saw us continue our commitment to meet our customer's needs and improve the services provided to our customers. The 24/7 hotline was introduced following feedback from the industry that a hotline would be useful for them to contact MPA officers after office hours for urgent cases relating to crewing, registry and ship's technical matters. The SRS has also expanded the Marinet online services and the list of services covered under the revised AAF scheme.
2017 was a milestone year for SRS in our journey to digitise the SRS fleet. MPA had started the issuance of e-certificates for Singapore-registered ships in Dec 2017. We believe that the use of e-certs will translate into considerable amount of manpower and financial savings for our stakeholders by removing the need to prepare, print and deliver these documents. Singapore is honoured to be re-elected to the council of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for the 13th consecutive two-year term. Singapore's membership of the IMO council over the years has allowed it to make significant contributions towards advancing the efforts of the international maritime community to enhance navigational safety, promote efficient and sustainable shipping, and protect the marine environment. We look forward to continue collaborating closely with IMO with inputs from the industry. Thanks to the collective efforts of our stakeholders and seafarers, the Singapore flag has continued to do well under the Tokyo and Paris MoU Regime last year. Our steadfast commitment to quality and safety has also been recognised by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) as the Singapore's flag qualified for the QUALSHIP 21 Programme in 2017. We would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt appreciation to all our stakeholders for their excellent efforts, and commitment to operate and maintain Singapore ships at its highest standards. And what would a New Year's post be without a prediction or two? Here are some of the trends we predict and a sneak preview of what to expect from the SRS in 2018. Despite the recent technological revolution, shipping remains a traditional industry with processes involving much paperwork. To stay ahead, the SRS will look into exploring new technologies, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, to simplify current procedures and offer value-added services to our customers. We welcome collaborations with like-minded partners in riding this tide to bring the maritime world into the digital age. With high-definition, camera-equipped drones being widely available and affordable, it is becoming more common to use them for ship's survey. To facilitate the use of drones in the inspection of cargo tanks on board Singapore-registered ships, MPA has been conducting trials and developing acceptance criterias which will be ready by first quarter this year. With the advancements in ship technology, we foresee that there will be an increase in the use of automation and artificial intelligence on shipboard operations in the future. As such, competencies and skills and skills being taught today might not be relevant in the future. For our seafarers to be future-ready, MPA will be looking at the impact of technology on the skill sets required as shipboard operations evolve. We are excited to get started in 2018 and look forward to working with our partners in the great year ahead!