Further to our joint industry submission letter to the Asian government leaders on crew changes in COVID-19 for calling upon leadership actions to saving stranded seafarers that urgently needed to be relieved, ASA coordinated another letter of appreciation to the Singapore Authorities (co-sponsored by 16 other international associations).
 
Singapore’s action towards seafarers is in line with the UN General Assembly, which on 1 December 2020 adopted a resolution calling for all governments to give seafarers key-worker status, by facilitating international travel and giving seafarers priority access to COVID-19 vaccinations. We are also thankful that Singapore implemented high-quality health protocols to ensure seafarers can move safely and securely to and from ships, via airports and other transport hubs

The ASA Secretary General, Yuchi Sonoda made his statement, “The Singapore Shipping Tripartite Alliance Resilience (SG-STAR) Fund has been endorsed by many international social partners for the marine transport and ASA as a gold standard initiative. We appreciate Singapore initiating this fund and recommending other jurisdictions to adopt to facilitate safe crew changes. In addition, ASA recognises that almost 95 percent of the crew changes carried out in Singapore are catered for seafarers from other parts of the world and we would like to express our gratitude to the Singapore Authorities for such facilitation.”
 
The letter to the Singapore Authorities is our follow-up calling for leadership actions and we will be communicating with other Asian governments for the same aspect. The letter to the Singapore Authorities is annexed as reference.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Xinde Marine News.