The Marshall Islands ship registry has now grown from 8 million tonnes to 11 million tonnes in the past year, Bill Gallagher, president of International Registries, Inc, announced today (25 May 2001) at a press conference in London.

He said the registry now had 370 ships and was continuing to grow rapidly. "We have doubled our bulk carrier tonnage over 1999, and in the same period increased our tanker tonnage by some 35%, and our general cargo tonnage by some 16%."

He reported that ships are now coming from owners in a much wider variety of countries. Next to the US, Greece heads the list, with the UK, Cyprus, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland and Lithuania following in that order. "Ships are now entering the registry from as far a field as Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines and Canada, to name just a few," he said.

He said that in the past year, eight modern LNG, largely owned by Mitsui OSK, had joined the registry along with another brand new VLCC from ExxonMobil. Interestingly, some of the LNGs have American crews.

Mr Gallagher said that IRI's new Miami office is concentrating on the cruise liner sector, and is expanding IRI's business among rig operators. "We have also launched a yacht registry to directly challenge the leaders in this field."

He said that IRI had 85 staff, of whom 35 were overseas, making it the best resourced private enterprise company in the registry administration field.

Mr Gallagher said that in recognition of the radical changes to the registry industry being brought about by the electronic revolution, IRI was leading the way in decentralising the whole procedure of ship registry and mortgages to increasingly autonomous and self-sufficient overseas offices. "This is enabling owners to register their ships speedily, in their own countries, and time zones." He said that the Marshall Islands were the first country to pass legislation to do this.

"Now we are intent on extending the business of the Marshall Islands into markets which have not been traditional for open registries. We are developing representation in mainland China, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, among others."