News Asian classification societies

Press Release

The ACS (Association of Asian Classification Societies) held its 29th Annual Executive Committee meeting (EC29) by virtual means  due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on 10^th November 2021, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Hiroaki Sakashita, President & CEO of ClassNK(NK). All of the seven ACS member societies were present at the meeting.

In his opening remarks the Chairman expressed regret that there was  no choice but to hold non-face-to-face meeting due COVID-19, and he expressed his gratitude to the members who joined the meeting and the ACS staff who made preparations for the meeting even under these circumstances. He also emphasized that the strategic directions of ACS are to pursue improvement of ACS Members’ performance and their technical contributions to the Asian maritime community. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, technical cooperation and support through face-to-face meetings has been  difficult. He also mentioned the importance to strengthen interactions and cooperation with Asian shipping and shipbuilding industry as well as Administrations in this region to promote regional maritime safety and protection of marine environment even through virtual means.

One of the main agenda of EC29 was to approve TASNEEF(Emirates Classification Society) to be accepted as a new member of ACS. As a result of review, it was judged that TASNEEF satisfies  all requirements of the membership criteria and TASNEEF’s accession as a member of ACS was approved by EC. The Chairman congratulated  TASNEEF on becoming  ACS member and Mr. Waleed Al Tamimi, General Manager of TASNEEF expressed his sincere gratitude to ACS for accepting their request for membership.

As part of technical contribution in the Asia region, “Recommendations to improve safety of domestic ferries and passenger ships” was issued and posted on the ACS website to provide  lessons learned from accidents in Asia as well as in the rest of the world  which will help in enhancing the safety of ships in Asia.  In addition, ACS Annual Report on PSC Inspection has been compiled and uploaded on ACS Website along with the PSC detention data for 2018~2020 of the ACS Member Societies’ classed vessels and analysis to provide useful guidance to ship operators and crew on board the ships.

ACS was formally founded in February 2010 with 6 founding members that are Biro Klasifikasi Indonesia(BKI), China Classification Society(CCS), Indian Register of Shipping(IRS), Korean Register(KR), Nippon Kaiji Kyokai(NK) and Vietnam Register(VR). And then, Ship Classification Malaysia(SCM) became the 7^th member of ACS  in January 2018 and Emirates Classification Society(TASNEEF) will become the  8^th member of ACS from January 2022. The purpose and aims of ACS is to promote ship safety at sea and protection of the marine environment and, in cooperation with other partners in the maritime community, and to purse improvement of ACS members’ performance and their technical contributions to the maritime community based on their accumulated technical knowledge and expertise.

Contact: Jeong-chong JEON, ACS Secretary (Seoul +82-70-4916-8140,

E-mail:Secretary@asiancs.org)