Indian Coast Guard organises 15th Capacity Building Senior Officers’ Meeting in Gujarat to strengthen international & regional cooperation to combat maritime piracy
By PIB Delhi
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) is organising the 15th edition of Capacity Building Senior Officers’ Meeting (CBSOM-2023) with the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) at Gandhinagar, Gujarat from December 11 to 15, 2023. The objective of the meeting is to understand the updated situation of maritime piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia, exchange each others’ experiences, and evolve best practices to tackle such incidents with a collaborative approach from all the contracting parties.
Being the designated Indian Governor to ReCAAP, Director General Rakesh Pal inaugurated the four-day meeting, which is being attended by international and national subject matter experts and speakers. A total of 19 international delegates from 15 countries are participating in the meeting. In addition, senior officials from the national stakeholders such as the Indian Navy, major ports, State Maritime Boards, Directorate General of Shipping, including other maritime organisations, are participating in this meeting.
The ReCAAP is the first and only regional government-to-government agreement to enhance cooperation to suppress piracy. India became the 10th country to ratify the ReCAAP agreement enabling it to enter into force on September 04, 2006. Now, there are 21 countries contracting parties to the ReCAAP agreement. The government of India has assigned the responsibility to the ICG for sharing information on piracy with member countries and the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, Singapore. The ICG successfully co-hosted Capacity Building workshops in India with ReCAAP ISC in 2011, 2017, and 2019.
