maritime

Naval security goes hi-tech

A new regulation proposed by the Comité de Seguridad Marítima requiring international ships to have a global positioning system on board will go into effect this December 31.

To fulfill the requirements, the Dirección de Marina Mercante de la Autoridad Marítima de Panamá (AMP) has set a bid for contracting a company to install Panama’s 7,600 boats with GPS, and to manage the information generated by the new systems, said Alfonso Castillero, general director of Marina Mercante.

Besides implementing this system to better identify ships, Panamanian naval authorities are considering setting up a national monitoring center that would coordinate all institutions involved in maritime security throughout the country, said Encarnación Samaniego, general director of Puertos e Industrias Marítimas Auxiliares at the AMP.

The proposed national monitoring center would manage the information concerning ships that are within 200 miles of Panama’s coasts. “At present, everything is known about ships transiting the Panama Canal,” said Samaniego. “But when it leaves the Canal and remains in national waters or arrives at any port, both the Marina Mercante and the Dirección de Puertos should know what that ship is doing.”

Another feature of the plan being developed to strengthen security is digitizing the identities of all people who board Panamanian ships. Samaniego said the measure would serve to “share information with other maritime authorities.”