APEC/OAS Interregional Cooperation on Port Security

The 32nd Meeting of the APEC Transportation Working Group (TPT-WG 31) and its Maritime Security Experts Subgroup (MEG-SEC) took place in Lima, Peru, August 25-28, 2008.   Twenty-six (26) delegates attended the MEG-SEC meeting, representing 12 Economies, namely, Australia, Canada, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Observers from the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) and the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Regional Coordinator for East Asia also attended the meeting.

Among other issues, MEG-SEC agreed to the request of the OAS/CICTE Secretariat to translate the APEC Manual of Maritime Security Drills and Exercises for Port Facilities into languages of the Americas for distribution to its Member States.  MEG-SEC also announced that the second of two workshops on the use of APEC’s Manual of Maritime Security Drills and Exercises for Port Facilities is tentatively scheduled for Vancouver, Canada, for October 2008. The CICTE Secretariat will be invited to participate in the workshop.

The United States provided a presentation on its Port Security Risk Assessment Tool (PSRAT). As a result of the coordination of the OAS/CICTE Secretariat, Peru has offered to pilot the PSRAT and agreed to report on the outcomes at the TPT-WG 32 Meeting that will take place in Singapore in July 2009.  MEG-SEC will also continue to seek IMO and OAS/CICTE Secretariat inputs when updating its Maritime Security Training Matrix, to avoid potential duplication. For more information:  Pablo Martinez (PMartinez@oas.org)