8 The principal purpose of the mission was to achieve the objectives laid down in paragraph 4 above, i.e. to increase awareness of the problem; impress upon the Brazilian Government representatives the need for action; and, more importantly, motivate political will to act at national and regional levels. The mission also aimed to review, with the agencies responsible for law enforcement, the current situation and jointly explore which and how improvement could be made. The terms of reference are given in annex 1.
To this effect, it aimed at:
- identifying both the general and specific problems relating to piracy and armed robbery against ships in the county, including a profile of the typical pirate/robber and most likely targets;
- studying existing national infrastructure (administrative and equipment) for dealing with the problem and determine how effective it was; and what else could and should be done;
- exploring ways of linking anti-piracy measures to existing law-enforcement measures thus pooling resources, if possible and saving costs, e.g. existing resources for anti-drug trafficking, anti-smuggling and anti-terrorism measures; and
- explaining available guidance materials (mainly MSC/Circs.622 and 623) for dealing with piracy and armed robbery against ships, as well as other IM0 recommendations to improve safety of life at sea.
9 The findings of the mission and the information provided are summarized in the ensuing sections.
FINDINGS AND INFORMATION PROVIDED
General
10 Brazil is the largest county in Latin America, the fifth largest in the world, the sixth most populous, and, with a 1996 gross domestic product (GDP) of $752 billion, it is a major economy on a worldwide basis. In order to improve the country's competitiveness in international trade, the Government inter-alia recently sought to reduce the high port and inland logistic cost through a programme of port privatization. A 1997 report produced by the World Economic Forum identified high port and inland logistic costs as one of the factors pricing the country's goods out of the international market. The programme of port privatization, which was accompanied with new performance standards for the privatized ports, has already resulted in price reduction in Brazilian ports.
11 To meet the demands of shipping companies, which are increasingly seeking to consolidate their main line operations at just one or two major ports in each trading route, the country is building a major transhipment port at Sepetiba Bay near Rio de Janeiro. The hub port with deep water approaches, longer berths, large container cranes and vast stocking areas, will be capable of taking main line container ships of up to 6,000 TEUs. It will act as a distribution or transhipment centre to other ports in the region, which will be served by smaller feeder vessels. This is expected to result in higher traffic levels at other Brazilian ports such as Rio de Janeiro and Santos.
12 Statistics compiled by IMO from reports submitted by member Governments and organizations in consultative status have shown that there were 15 reported incidents of armed robbery in Brazilian waters in 1995, 19 in 1996 and 25 in 1997 and 5 in 1998 (see annex 2). The relative good figure of the last year can be credited to the work of the National public Safety Commission on Ports, Terminal and Waterways (CONPORTOS), established in 1995 to deal with this issue. For a number of reasons, many masters are reluctant to report piracy incidents either to their shipping companies or to the local authorities and it is generally believed that attacks on ships are under-reported by a factor of 1 to 3. One feature of the attacks in Brazilian waters has been the amount of violence used by the attackers often involving the use of fire-arms against the crew. There has therefore been considerable concern among seafarers, shipowners and other interested parties on the year-by-year rise in the number of reported cases.
