MARITIME LAW

World Seaborne trade has grown continuously since World War II, with ton-miles increasing more than three folds since 1970. Seaborne trade accounts for 89.6 % of global trade in terms of volume and 70.1% in terms of value. Air borne trade and cargo has a share of just 0.27% and 14.1% of trade value. Overland and other modes including pipelines account for remaining 10.2% of volume and 15.8% of trade value.

We can estimate the scope of maritime affairs in Pakistan from the fact that Asia’s share of sea borne export is 40% followed in descending order by America, Europe, Africa and Oceania. In 1970, developing countries still imported high value / low volume manufactured goods and exported above all low value raw materials as a result they exported almost four times as many tons of sea borne cargo than they imported. Today, developing countries participate much more in globalized production processes. It would not be wrong to say that China, India and other Asian countries have become important importers of commodities. If Pakistan is focusing on developing its maritime sector, the country will have to specialize in maritime business. Readily observable examples of specialization exist in ship construction, technical managements, ship repairs and dry docking, ship registrations, crewing, shipping finance, ship chartering brokering, marine insurance and mandatory admiralty legislation for investments, sustainable living and development. Many Asian players have become important players in different maritime businesses. Pakistan and Bangladesh have their highest market shares in ship scrapping Pakistan has 112 ship breaking plots which makes it 3rd largest ship scraper ; Indonesia and Philippines in provision of ratings (seafarers and other officers); Republic of Korea in container ship building ; China, Hong Kong and Singapore in international port operations. Different maritime businesses are not necessarily located in the same countries.