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| HMM Algeciras, the world's largest vessel owned by HMM, sails under the Panamanian flag in April. / Courtesy Embassy of Panama |
By Yi Whan-woo
The world's largest container vessel owned by HMM, Korea's largest containers carrier, flies the Panamanian flag, the Panamanian Embassy in Seoul said last week.
The embassy said HMM Algeciras, for convenient international maritime trade, has been flying the Panamanian flag after it was built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in April and has since been assigned to the Asia-Northern Europe route.
HMM Algeciras is one of the mega-sized 12 vessels that HMM ordered either from DSME or Samsung Heavy Industries. All will carry Panamanian flags. Some vessels have already been built while others are scheduled to be sequentially delivered by September.
All 12 have a capacity of 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), a measurement based on a standard-sized 20-foot-long container box.
Still, the embassy noted that HMM Algeciras sailing under its national flag was meaningful because it is the world's first 24,000 TEU-sized merchant ship.
Panamanian Ambassador and General Consul to Korea Athanasio Kosmas noted the Panamanian ship registration was made easier by the recently introduced New Digital Services.
Initiated by the Panama Maritime Authority, New Digital Services allows certificates of registration to be issued electronically and get related information at the authority's 12 global offices and 53 Panamanian consulates around the world.
It has reduced the time for issuance of registration certificates to one or two days ― down from three to five days previously.
"All of HMM's new generation mega-ships will sail with the flag of Panama and HMM is making the most of the Panama Registry's Newly Built Incentive Policy," Kosmas said.
The ambassador said New Digital Services was "welcomed by Korean ship owners to solve time and cost issues."
Panama is known for its open registry, with its flag offering easier registration, cheaper foreign labor and no income tax.
For this reason, most merchant ships flying Panama's flag belong to foreign owners wishing to avoid the stricter marine regulations imposed by their own countries.
This has made Panama's shipping fleet the largest in the world, greater than those of the U.S. and China combined.
Of the Korean-origin container ships, the other 11 HMM vessels are: HMM Copenhagen, HMM Dublin, HMM Gdansk, HMM Hamburg, HMM Helsinki and HMM Le Havre, HMM Oslo, HMM Rotterdam, HMM Stockholm, HMM Southampton and HMM St. Petersburg.
All assigned to the Asia-Northern Europe route, also called Far East Europe, and are named after respective European cities.
They will join "The Alliance," a consortium of shipping companies.
The construction of the 12 vessels came as Korea seeks to revive its sluggish shipbuilding industry.
In September 2018, HMM signed a contract for construction of mega container vessels with three shipyards ― DSME, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries.
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