Norwegian Maritime Authority Director Outlines Registry's Strengths

Norwegian Maritime Authority director-general of shipping and navigation Olav Akselsen has written about the highlights of the country's ship registries:

Is it possible for a traditional government authority to be user friendly? In the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) we believe so. Since moving our head office from Oslo to our present west coast location in Haugesund in 2006, we have worked hard to make our services more accessible to all our users.

The concept of user friendliness ties into several of the NMA’s responsibilities and strategic goals. As an administrative and authoritative body for issues related to safety on Norwegian-registered vessels and foreign vessels in Norwegian ports, our users are — broadly speaking — the whole maritime industry. The NMA’s vision also states a degree of user participation, namely “Together for Safety at Sea in a Clean Environment”. Expecting collaboration from the whole industry in fulfilling this vision, the NMA strives to make this cooperation as uncomplicated and user friendly as possible.

With maritime clusters dotting the Norwegian coastline, newbuilding activity at an all-time-high in the past few years, innovative new ship designs and breakthroughs in the offshore industry, the pace is fast. The NMA has been working to streamline the authorisation processes in newbuildings by investing heavily in online services. In 2012, we switched to online submission and processing of ship drawings. We have also instituted a project model for newbuildings, appointing one project manager as a single contact point for each vessel. In the pipeline for 2014 is direct online access for shipowners and contractors to the NMA’s case handling for new vessels under the Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS) or NOR flag, ensuring that most processes requiring interaction with the NMA can be handled in one online system.

The NIS is a high quality register, serving fast moving international customers and providing full service around the clock. Registrations may take place between 7am and midnight all days except Sundays and international holidays.

This service is available by appointment and, if needed, at short notice. NIS is renowned for being user friendly. Both the NIS fees as well as Norwegian shipping taxation are regarded as highly competitive.

‘Efficient’ tax-reimbursement scheme

The reimbursement scheme for seafarers is another example: Making the move online in early 2013, the majority of companies with NIS-registered ships now utilise a single online application form. This guarantees an efficient reimbursement of taxes according to the rules of the NOK 1.6bn ($257m) total reimbursement scheme for NOR and NIS-registered ships.

Finally, manning all ships flying the Norwegian flag are seafarers dependent on personal certificates issued by the NMA. The application process has until recently required submission of numerous documents by traditional mail, causing the NMA to allocate considerable resources to handling, approving and issuing certificates.

We are therefore proud to unveil our latest effort in user friendliness. From August 2013, it has been possible for Norwegian seafarers to apply for personal certificates online. Required documentation of qualifications (medical, educational and service records) are submitted to our database by the issuer and paired automatically with seafarer’s applications.

This will greatly simplify and improve the efficiency of the application processing, again benefitting our users.