BRIEFS. maritime

Panama seeks to register more ships

LA PRENSA

First place: More ships are registered in Panama---7,605 according to the latest count---than in any other country in the world.1018765

. Panama hopes to register 395 more ships and add 6 million more tons to its registry before the end of 2008, according to the director of the Marina Mercante de la Autoridad Marítima de Panamá (AMP), Alfonso Castillero.

That would bring the total number of ships registered here to 8,000 and the total tons to 174 million, or 21 percent of the world's merchant marine fleet.

Panama has the largest ship registry in the world. Its nearest competitors are Liberia, with 2,171 ships (nine percent); the Bahamas, with 1,421 ships (6 percent); and the Marshall Islands, with 1,099 vessels (5 percent).

The average age of boats flying under the Panamanian flag is 19 years, which is also the world registry average.

"From 2004 to the present there has been an increase of almost 40 million tons," said Castillero.

Of the total number of boats registered in Panama, 40 percent are Japanese owned. Castillero said that the AMP recently went to Japan to solidify relations with its clients there, though it is still courting other markets such as Europe and the rest of Asia. Germany, for example, has a large number of ships that the AMP would like to add to its registry, said Castillero.