Today I was a consecutive interpreter at a meeting between Maxim Sokolov, the Minister of Transport of the RF, and Mr. Ki-tack Lim, IMO Secretary General. The meeting was attended by the Deputy Minister of Transport of the RF – the Head of the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport of Russia Viktor Olersky and the Director of the Depratment for State Policy on Maritime and River Transport of the Ministry of Transport of the RF Vitaly Klyuev.Since the Ministry of Transport of Russia has been appointed the “principal” body responsible for the Russia’s activity in IMO, the Minister assured the Secretary General that Russia as a permanent “A” category member of IMO Council is actively involved in taking all important decisions on international shipping and continues to work on the improvement of current IMO documents as well as the development of new IMO instruments covering latest changes in the shipping industry.
The participants of the meeting looked at a number of issues related to IMO work, new rregulations and conventions, including reduction of GHG emissions from ships, regulation on maximum permissible sulfur content in liquid fuel on ships, lightening of administrative burden on ship crews, reduction of black carbon emissions from ships and translation of IMO documents into Russian.
After the conference in the Ministry of Transport the Minister and Mr. Ki-tack Lim visited Sovkomflot, a Russian leading shipping company.