乘风破浪(1)——为何中国制造的船不愿悬挂中国船旗？

With around 90% of China’s trade seaborne, and Beijing’s well-publicized goal of becoming the world’s largest ship-builder by 2015, it is obvious why China takes its shipping industry so seriously. What may come as a surprise is that in a country which puts so much stock in national identity, 60% of Chinese ships fly under foreign flags.

Or perhaps not. Shipping is a business like any other, and both ship owners and shipping companies are more concerned with the bottom line than with what colors they fly on their masts. And this is not a purely Chinese phenomenon: recent statistics show that more than 70% of maritime vessels are registered outside of their home countries.

Put off by high fees and onerous restrictions and taxes in the likes of the US and UK,  ship owners have for some years now chosen to register in far flung countries like Panama or Liberia. However, other offshore jurisdictions – from Mongolia to the Marshall Islands – are keen on to get in on the multi-million dollar act. Registries are offering high-tech online incorporation, tax breaks and cheap fees as they battle for business.

“The global merchant shipping sector is a fiercely, brutally competitive market,” said Mark Millar, managing director of M Power Associates, a logistics consultancy. “Any advantage an open registry can offer will make it more competitive.”

Open registries—multinational arrangements for financing, owning, and operating a ship—date back hundreds of years since the US established the first registries in Panama and Liberia. Sailing under foreign flags allowed ship owners to circumvent US national registry requirements that ships be constructed, owned, and operated by American citizens.

正因为中国有大约90％ 的贸易是通过海上运输，而且中国政府也高调宣传了他们的目标——将在2015年成为世界最大造船国。很显然，中国有理由高度重视它的航运业。但令人惊讶的是，在一个如此重视自己民族身份的国家里，60％的中国船只都悬挂外国船旗。

这里或许另有起因——航运也和其他行业一样，比起悬挂什么颜色的船旗，船东和航运公司更关心他们账本底线。而且，这并非是中国特有的现象——近期数据显示，超过70％的海船都在选择在国外注册。

由于英美国家费用高昂，限令和税收繁重，船东们这些年都选择在偏远的巴拿马或利比里亚等国注册。然而，其它的离岸辖区也很热衷于从事这种数百万美元的交易，例如从蒙古到马绍尔群岛。注册机构纷纷提供高科技的在线公司注册、减税和低廉的费用来抢夺生意。

 “全球的货物航运业是一个非常残酷的激烈的竞争市场，”M Power Associates（物流咨询公司）的总经理Mark Millar说道。“开放的注册机构能提供的好处越多，它的竞争力就越强。”

从事跨国融资、跨国拥有并经营船舶的这种开放的注册机构，几百年前就已存在。美国在巴拿马和利比里亚建立了第一家注册机构。悬挂外国船旗航行使得船东们可以绕开美国国家注册机构的规定，即船舶必须由美国公民建造、拥有并经营。

Plain sailing

Other advantages prevail to this day. National registries take days to process applications and often levy heavy taxes on ships and tariffs on the goods they transport. Open registries can handle applications over the internet in a matter of hours, typically charge a flat rate for registrations, and don’t hassle owners with excessive regulatory minutiae.

Time is an important consideration given that a ship cannot move until it is registered. “Any time a vessel is idle awaiting documentation to be processed, it is costing its owners substantial sums of money,” explained Alberto Lopez, a maritime lawyer with DeCastro & Robles in Panama.

Worldwide, the number of ships listing on open registries has been rising every year since the Institute of Shipping Logistics (ISL) began tracking them in 1994. The appeal of open registries has not been lost on the Chinese. According to the ISL’s Shipping Statistics Yearbook, 60.3% of Chinese vessels sail under foreign flags. This isn’t so surprising, given that, until 2007, a 27.5% tax was levied on foreign-built ships, making it wildly cost-prohibitive to register on the national registry. Historical prohibitions against trading directly with Taiwan also made “flagging out” a more convenient option for Chinese-controlled ships engaged in international trade.

Despite open registries being cost-effective and efficient, the system is not without its flaws. Critics typically refer to open registries as “flags of convenience,” a term that highlights the benefits owners receive in lowered costs and less rigorous monitoring.

一帆风顺

（开放注册机构）的其他好处现在仍在。国家注册机构需要花好些天来办理申请，而且经常对船舶课以重税，对船运货物征收很重的关税。而在开放的登记机构办理，只需通过互联网短短的几个小时即可完成。注册时的硬性收费采取均一费率，并且不会用过于严格的细枝末节来烦扰船主们。

由于船舶未注册就不能航行，因此，时间是一个重要的考虑因素。“无论何时，船舶为了等待办理手续而闲置，都会使船东耗费巨资。”DeCastro & Robles （巴拿马海事律所）的一位海事律师 Alberto Lopez 解释道。

自1994起，航运物流研究所（ISL）一直在跟踪开放注册机构登记的船舶数量，而该数字一直在逐年增长。开放登记机构对中国船舶并没有失去吸引力。根据ISL 2007年的《航运统计年鉴》显示，有60.3％的中国船舶航行时悬挂外国船旗。这不足为奇，例如2007年，中国对外国制造船舶要征收27.5％的税，这种情况下，如果在国内登记，将会使成本高得出奇。另外，由于历史原因，中国大陆禁止与台湾进行直接贸易，所以“悬挂外国船旗”对中国船舶经营者从事国际贸易来讲，显得更加方便。

尽管开放的注册机构划算、高效，但这一系统也有缺陷。批评家们称开放式注册为“方便旗”，这一术语强调了船东由于低廉的成本和宽松的监管而获得的收益。

Black List

A joint report released in 2008 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Tradeworkers Federation (ITF) decried the lack of accountability inherent in the system. It said that open registries could potentially, and unwittingly, provide shelter for narcotics and arms smuggling as well as people trafficking, leaving a convoluted paper trail that implicates no one. Some ships registered to countries like Cambodia—whose registry is blacklisted by regulatory bodies—engage in illegal and unregulated fishing in protected waters, while many ships on open registers have been cited by the ITF for underpaying their crews or understaffing.

Then there is the fact that many of the jurisdictions now offering maritime services have little or no relation to the shipping or fishing industries. The landlocked country of Mongolia, for example, has 1,600 ships from Japan and Korea flying its flags, after opening its open registry in 2003. The country’s registry lost two ships in September 2009 due to alleged over-crowding, while a number of Mongolian-registered vessels have been accused of illegal smuggling in recent months.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) puts the onus for upholding regulations on the flag state, but not all flag states are willing or able to regulate the ships on their registries. Like most areas of the offshore finance industry, some jurisdictions are better than others.

黑名单

由世界野生动物基金（WWF）和国际工会协会（ITF）在2008年发表的一份联合报告谴责这一制度本身缺乏责任感。报告中称，开放式注册可能会无意地为毒品和军火走私和贩卖人口提供庇护，并且不能通过费解的登记文件追究到任何人。在某些国家注册的船舶——例如柬埔寨，该国已经被监察当局列入了黑名单——常常在受保护水域从事非法和违规捕鱼。另外，许多开放注册的船舶都因拖欠船员工资和船员不足而被ITF点名。

事实上，现在许多辖区提供的海上服务几乎不涉及航运业和捕鱼业。作为内陆国的蒙古，自从2003年成立开放的注册机构以来，有1600条日本和韩国的船舶悬挂该国的船旗。但在2009年9月，该国因过于拥挤而失去两条船的注册。此外，最近几个月，大量在蒙古注册的船舶被指控非法走私。

联合国海洋法公约规定，悬挂哪国的国旗，该国就有义务监管，但是不是所有的国旗国都愿意或能够监管在他们境内注册的船舶。正如大多数离岸金融业一样，有一些辖区比其他的要好。

（未完）

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强烈推荐两篇文章，刘老师的~分析透彻~有理有力有节~

中资方便旗船何时回归（上）http://www.ship.sh/space.php?uid=3034&do=blog&id=5203

中资方便旗船何时回归（下）http://www.ship.sh/space.php?uid=3034&do=blog&id=5204