Neil Baird to address ASEAN Regional Forum on ferry safety

The co-founder and chairman of Baird Maritime, Dr Neil Baird, will next week participate in and address the Third ARF Workshop on Ferry Safety in Guangzhou, China.

Dr Baird will be reporting on behalf of Interferry, the global trade association for ferry owners, most particularly its FerrySafe initiative, on the results of its two missions to the Philippines earlier this year. He will emphasise the lessons learnt from the very successful efforts of the Philippines government and some of its more progressive ferry owners in improving ferry safety in that country. He will also describe the ongoing efforts of FerrySafe/Interferry in transferring those important lessons to other countries having poor safety records.

He will be supporting and encouraging the China Maritime Safety Administration, which is jointly organising the workshop with its Thai counterpart, in its very valuable efforts to encourage domestic ferry safety improvements, particularly in developing countries.

He will strongly encourage the China MSA to keep working with the Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Organisation to ensure that it remains strongly focused on eliminating the problem of domestic ferry safety.

The significant improvements in ferry safety in the Philippines will be highlighted as an excellent example of what can be achieved when governments gain the will to seriously tackle the ferry safety problem.