The meeting was virtually hosted by the Marine Department of Thailand and was attended by representatives from all ten (10) ASEAN Member States, Dialogue partners attending the meeting as observers apart from IMO included the China Maritime Safety Administration, the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Japan Coast Guard, the Republic of Korea Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries, and the Federation of ASEAN Shipowners Associations (FASA).
IMO has been working with stakeholders over the last year to promote the recognition of seafarers as key workers and IMO proposed to have an inter-sessional meeting so that the AMS could have a forum particularly focused on addressing the issues related to the crew crisis and the prioritization of seafarers for vaccination. The AMS agreed that because of the importance of the issue, it was necessary to have a dedicated meeting just to focus on the seafarers and related issues, like crew change and seafarers’ vaccinations. Thailand agreed to host the meeting. They will discuss the arrangements with the ASEAN secretariat and IMO for the conduct of the meeting. IMO agreed to participate in the inter-sessional meeting and support the activity.