Informal lunch meeting for States from the Asia Pacific region

On 13 February 2014, the Director of the IOPC Funds hosted an informal lunch meeting for the UK-based representatives of Asia Pacific States.
This meeting, the 15th organised since 2009, was well attended with 14 guests representing 11 States. The UK-based representatives had the opportunity to ask questions and to exchange their views on various subjects such as the running of Funds’ meetings, oil reporting, the contributions system, incidents and claims handling and the status of the HNS Convention.
In a welcoming statement the Director took the opportunity to remind those States present that the work of the Funds was dependent on the active participation of its Member States. He drew attention to some issues which would be discussed at the forthcoming May sessions of the governing bodies such as the winding up of the 1971 Fund and the definition of ‘ship’. He also referred to the new Claims Information Pack which is due to be published in March 2014 and explained that the new Claims Manual and all the claims-related publications have been put together to ensure consistency and facilitate access to the guidelines for potential claimants. The Director also indicated that the Secretariat was working on two further draft guidelines on Clean-up and Preventive Measures and Fishery Restrictions which would be presented to the governing bodies for approval in due course.
A number of valuable new contacts were made during the meeting. Attendees were reminded that the next meetings of the IOPC Funds governing bodies would take place from 6-9 May 2014.
The next regional lunch meeting is planned to be take place in early summer 2014.