Res Communis

IMSO Signs LRIT Services Agreement With Ecuador

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

From the International Maritime Satellite Organization:

IMSO NEWS 019
23 July 2009
IMSO SIGNS LRIT SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH ECUADOR

The IMSO Director General, Captain Esteban Pacha-Vicente, today signed the LRIT Services Agreement between IMSO and the Direccion Nacional de Espacios Acuaticos (DIRNEA) of Ecuador, represented by its National Director Mr Jaime Ayala, in the presence of Captain Remigio Haro, Permanent Representative of Ecuador to IMO and Naval Assistant to the United Kingdom.

IMSO Director General Capt Esteban Pacha (left) presenting a signed LRIT Services Agreement to the Permanent Representative of Ecuador to IMO Capt Remigio Haro (right)

The LRIT Services Agreement, prescribed in the IMSO Convention, establishes the relationship between IMSO, as the LRIT Coordinator appointed by IMO, and the LRIT Data Centre for the audit and review of each Data Centre. A Model LRIT Services Agreement was approved for this purpose by the IMSO Assembly at its 20th session on Malta in 2008.

Ecuador has established a National LRIT Data Centre that started its testing on 30 June 2009 and therefore is expected to be integrated by IMSO into the LRIT production environment as soon as the testing phase is successfully completed.

Captain Pacha expressed his satisfaction with the current level of progress on implementation of the LRIT system worldwide and in particular with the commitment of Ecuador to make it happen by using its own resources. Together with those of Brazil, Chile and Panama, the LRIT Data Centre of Ecuador is the fourth that has been established in the Latin-American region.

A total of 22 LRIT Data Centres have been integrated into the LRIT system and a further 14 LRIT Data Centres, including Ecuador National LRIT Data Centre, have been authorised to start developmental testing by IMO, and expected to be integrated shortly by IMSO. In total, these Centres represent more than 80 percent of the world’s registered fleet.

IMSO continues to be actively involved in the integration process of further LRIT Data Centres, leading to an estimated total of 62 Data Centres overall by the end of 2009.