Hong Kong shipowners and ship managers will have to pay more attention to the safety of their vessels under a quality-improvement programme announced by the Marine Department yesterday.
The launch coincides with US Coast Guard figures showing Hong Kong-flagged ships had more safety detentions in US ports last year than mainland-registered ships.
Chan Ming-yau, general manager of the Marine Department's ship safety branch, said the new programme would require ship managers to keep records about detentions in port and safety deficiencies on their ships.
They must also record the number of ship inspections where no deficiencies were recorded by official maritime inspection personnel at ports around the world.
The scheme is part of a six-point quality initiative, which includes notifying all ships of details about detentions and deficiencies of other Hong Kong-registered ships.
The goal is to encourage captains to avoid similar problems, analyse the causes of detentions and deficiencies, assess any trends, and plan improvements.