MORE than one in 10 containers inspected were found to have a deficiency, according to the latest data gathered by the International Maritime Organization and published by the World Shipping Council.
Of the 77,688 containers inspected by member states in 2024, 11.39% were reported as having deficiencies, the data from the World Shipping Council shows.
The WSC has taken on the responsibility of publishing reports from inspection data submitted to the International Maritime Organization by member states.
While the raw data is still available in the IMO’s Global Integrated Shipping Information System, the regulator decided to stop publishing consolidated digests from the data at a meeting of its Sub-Committee on Carriage of Cargoes and Containers in September 2024.
In a bid to reduce the workload on the committee, and with the information already available on GISIS, the sub-committee decided to discontinue the consolidated report.
The Cargo Integrity Group, of which the WSC is a member of, expressed its concern about the IMO’s decision before it was taken, calling the more easily read reports an “essential function”.
World Shipping Council chief executive Joe Kramek said it was important for the data to be put “under people’s noses” and highlighted the relative obscurity of GISIS, which is a system very familiar to some but anonymous to many.
Kramek acknowledged the workload the IMO must get through with a “thin staff”.
He called WSC’s decision to take ownership of publishing the reports a “bold move”.
“We thought it was really important, so we raised our card and said we would like to take on this responsibility,” he told Lloyd’s List.
The data, whoever publishes it, illustrates what Kramek called a “stunning amount” of deficient containers.
He said if the 11% figure gathered in 2024 was extrapolated out to all containerised trade worldwide, the industry would be looking at some 25m deficient containers moving through ports and on vessels each year.
That figure is particularly alarming in the wake of several high-profile containership fires in recent months, including Wan Hai 503 (IMO: 9294862) which burned for more than a month before the fire was contained.
“In terms of the deficiencies, the most scary and impactful is the mis- or non-declaration of hazardous goods,” Kramek told Lloyd’s List.
“This puts everyone in danger,” he said, “because now you’re putting the seafarers, the longshoremen, the ship and even other customers’ cargo in danger,” he said.
While a timely reminder of the dangers posed by deficient cargo, the sample size of containers inspected is very low as a proportion of global trade.
Just seven member states submitted their data to the IMO in 2024, a responsibility they are encouraged, rather than mandated, to fulfil.
“I can’t speak for why member states aren’t transmitting the data to the same extent they’re doing the inspections,” Kramek admitted. “Perhaps they find it administratively burdensome too.”
He said that highlighting the scale of deficiency might go some way to encouraging member states to “perform their duties”.
“There’s major room for improvement in cargo safety, and everyone has a role to play,” he said.
“And so we want to highlight this data so that they step up and play that role, and make the maritime environment safer.”
