Reporter Xu Miaomiao

for preservation and reference. However, with the advancement of the times and the rapid development of network electronic technology, traditional paper ship certificates have gradually shown features that are not consistent with the speed and ef fi ciency of the current time. They are mainly re fl ected in the fact that traditional paper ship certificates will consume more administrative resources.

In order to solve this problem, IMO has been committed to the promotion and application of marine e-certi fi cate over recent years. IMO adopted the Guidelines for the Use of Electronic Certificates (FAL.5/Circ.39/Rev.2)at the 40thAssembly to provide practical guidance for various authorities and recognized organizations to

The ship “New America”, a Chinese ship engaged in international navigation, was officially issued a series of statutory survey certi fi cates and temporary classi fi cation certi fi cates by CCS Shanghai Branch on April 17, 2018. This is the first e-certificate issued to Chinese ship engaged in international navigation by the ship inspection agency authorized by China Maritime Safety Administration and is also the fi rst e-certi fi cate issued to ships by China Classification Society, marking the official entry of CCS ship survey and certi fi cation into the e-certi fi cation era.

Since the birth of the ship certificate, the industry has always used a paper certificate that is convenientissue and approve e-certi fi cates on April 20, 2016.

China Classification Society completed the issuance of marine e-certificates, the development of the management system and introduced them to the industry at the end of March this year. In order to realize IMO’s good wish of providing convenience for related parties in the industry at an early age, CCS developed an e-Cert promotion program and set up a special Q&A team to answer questions for customers in the initial stage of the implementation of the e-Cert. CCS represents the fl ag states which have authorized CCS to issue statutory survey, safety management system certification, ship security system certification, MLC inspection and other electronic certi fi cates. CCS issues the certi fi cate document for the same ship in the same manner to facilitate the management and application of certi fi cates by ship companies and onboard. The e-Cert issued by CCS has the same validity as the paper certificate.According to different requirements of the authorized fl ag state, CCS issued paper and electronic certi fi cates for Chinese- fl ag international sailing vessels, and issued e-certificates or paper certificates for ships of other authorized fl ag states.

At present, CCS has obtained the authorization of 19 fl ag states to issue e-certi fi cates for their fl agged ships,representing that they can issue e-certificates for 80%ships of CCS class. This will continue to expand until all CCS classed ships are covered. Going forward, CCS is ready to extend the concept of e-Cert to all documents issued to customers to provide maximum convenience to customers. It will also work with China Maritime Safety Administration to study the application of e-Cert for Chinese ships engaged in domestic navigation to jointly promote scienti fi c and technological innovation of China's transportation and construction of intelligent maritime industry.