Further to our joint industry submission letter to the Asian government leaders on crew changes in COVID-19 for calling upon leadership actions to saving some 400,000 stranded seafarers that urgently needed to be relieved, ASA coordinated a letter of appreciation to the Vietnam Ministry of Transport (co-sponsored by 16 other international associations).
For the last six months or more, we recognised that the Vietnam Maritime Administration, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Health, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and other concerning parties had been actively rectifying the issues related to seafarers and the crew changes protocols. We are extremely appreciative for the assistance and guidance by the Vietnam authorities on crew changes both domestically and internationally.
The ASA Secretary General, Yuchi Sonoda made his statement, “We encourage Vietnam for allowing seafarers of any nationality to stay in the country until the arrival of the flight or ship without restricting the amount of days. We would also like to call on Vietnam to urge other governments to remove national restrictions and to allow for seafarers to stay in their countries for at least 10 days for the purposes of onsigning and repatriating albeit restricting seafarer movement.”
The letter to the Vietnam Ministry of Transport is our follow-up calling for leadership actions and we will be communicating with other Asian governments for the same aspect. The letter to the Vietnam MOT is annexed as reference.
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