In the aftermath of the sinking of the "ERIKA" in December 1999 off the coast of France, in order to further improve maritime safety and marine environmental protection, Directive 2001/105/EC (hereinafter referred to as this Directive) amending Council Directive 94/57/EC was prepared by EU (European Union) Commission and adopted by the EU Council. This Directive entered into force on 22 January 2002 and EU Member states have been requested to comply with this Directive by 22 July 2003 at the latest.

As one of the major amendments to this Directive, there is one which relates to the transparency of survey status information. This Directive prescribes that Organisations recognised by the EU member states including ClassNK to release the survey status information of their classed fleet, and as the means of release of the information, the following have been requested.

1. Publishing on their Website
2. Communicating to Port State Control Officers under the jurisdiction of Paris MOU

Currently, IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) including ClassNK has been making efforts to comply with the requirements regarding release of information in this Directive.

Regarding the publication of information on the Website, information registered with ClassNK has been already published on ClassNK's Website (http://www.classnk.or.jp/) - Register of Ships since 1 January 2003 although further amendments will be added.
Regarding communicating survey status information to Port State Control Officers under the jurisdiction of Paris MOU, currently ClassNK is developing the system required for such communication. In such a system, fuller survey status information is to be made available only to designated Port State Control Officers to whom a password to access the information is assigned, in order to maintain the confidentiality, since the extent of the information to be communicated is broader than the information to be generally published on the Website.

It is expected that the information which has already been published and will be published on ClassNK's Website, and the information which is to be communicated to Port State Control Officers under the jurisdiction o f Paris MOU will be as follows.

(To be continued)

1. The information which has already been published and will be published on ClassNK's Website
Particulars of ships
Due date of each survey (Due range or date, Extended due date (if applicable), date of last survey)
Outstanding Recommendations which have not been rectified by the due date. (Overdue Outstanding Recommendations)
List of ships with class transferred, suspended and/or withdrawn and the reason for class suspension and/or withdrawal.

2. The additional information that will be communicated to Port State Control Officers under the
jurisdiction of the Paris MOU (in addition to items stated in the above 1)
Outstanding Recommendations which should be rectified by the due date for deletion or correction (Not Overdue Outstanding Recommendations)

The due date of each survey and outstanding recommendations (irrespective of whether it is overdue or not) are divided into statutory survey status information (based on International Conventions) and class related survey status information (based on ClassNK's rules). Regarding the statutory survey status information, IACS considers that the ownership of this information rests with the Flag states, and accordingly, ClassNK will make the statu