Pakistan, Sept. 24 — Pakistan handles 95% of its international trade through three primary maritime gateways, namely Karachi Port, Port Qasim, and Gwadar Port. These ports connect the country to global supply chains while serving as critical hubs for imports, exports, as well as regional transit. Yet this scale hardly gets attention outside of the industry itself. World Maritime Day, observed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on the last Thursday of September each year, exists to change that.
This year’s theme, “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence,” does not add new commitments but focuses on making commitments real in national law, port operations and daily practice. This theme is also linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals involving SDG 9 on infrastructure and innovation, SDG 13 on climate action and SDG 14 on life below water. This is all connected as a well-functioning maritime sector encapsulating trade, jobs, coastal livelihoods and the health of the ocean at once.
There is no lack of rules and paperwork in the maritime world. SOLAS ensures ships remain safe, MARPOL ensures they do not pollute, the Maritime Labour Convention protects the people who work on ships, and the 2023 Greenhouse Gas Strategy provides a pathway to net zero by around 2050. Shipping may seem to be one of the most regulated industries on earth, on paper. In reality, the gap between where these rules are written and a small port where there is no qualified surveyor may be vast. A convention that has never been made into law and is not being followed is not really a rule. It is a wish.
Decarbonisation shows this gap clearly. The aviation sector is roughly equal to shipping in terms of GHG emissions and is under a great deal of pressure to get cleaner. Reducing emissions includes retrofitting, building bunkering infrastructure for new fuels (methanol and ammonia) and rethinking financing and insurance of ships. Singapore and Rotterdam have jumped the gun and are implementing pilots of green fuel and carbon pricing. In fact, Pakistan, like many developing maritime countries, has tremendous potential in this area, owing to its coastal geography, expanding port infrastructure and the prospect of further technology transfer, financing and training as this shift is anticipated to gain momentum. Powering the transition means these resources reaching ports like Karachi and Gwadar, alongside the resolutions passed at IMO headquarters.
The crew on these ships has a similar tale. The industry is facing a shortage of some 39,000 certified officers and will require more than 113,000 more officers by 2030, according to the latest Seafarer Workforce Report, which BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping have released this year. Pakistan has always provided skilled officers and seafarers to the world’s fleets from the Pakistan Marine Academy in Karachi, which is now upgraded to a full Maritime University. This makes Pakistan ready to meet the growing demand of the world. So, there are existing training standards and career pathway policies, and now it’s time to take it up a notch, with seats, with scholarships and with a firmer resolve for young students, particularly from coastal Sindh and Balochistan, to see a career at sea as a viable option.
Here, the theme is most relevant for Pakistan. More than 50 per cent of the country’s imports and exports pass through Port Qasim, while Gwadar is being developed in stages to accommodate ships of much greater draft than it does today. The Ministry of Maritime Affairs has launched plans to expand the national shipping fleet from the current dozen ships to sixty in a few years, and a Blue Economy Training Centre will be established to train a thousand people in Gwadar in logistics, fisheries and aquaculture. These are strong, forward-looking commitments. Now it’s time for the follow-through, that is, for relevant stakeholders to work together to staff the training centres, fund the fleet expansion and ensure that smaller coastal communities are incorporated as these plans advance.
Aquaculture makes this even clearer. The new National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy (2025-35) has set an ambitious and welcome target of a major surge in fisheries exports, a notable goal for a largely small and informal sector along Pakistan’s coast in Sindh and Balochistan. Getting there will depend on the work of the relevant stakeholders to bring licensing, disease monitoring and environmental standards to the appropriate coastal communities, with the assistance of outreach officers, low-cost test equipment and licensing systems that do not require a lawyer to navigate. It is where Maritime Excellence is made a reality instead of a slogan, at a training centre in Gwadar, at a licensing office in Karachi or on a boat off the coast of Balochistan.
World Maritime Day is often seen as a symbolic day, a press release and a couple of pictures of ships in harbour. This year’s theme calls on us all, especially Pakistan’s maritime fraternity, to reflect on areas where support is necessary for implementation. Rules alone are not enough for maritime excellence. It will come from the collective effort of translating existing rules into reality across the coastal belt.
Ultimately, this also means retiring the mindset of working in silos. The National Maritime Policy, National Shipping Policy and National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy cannot be developed, approved and implemented independently. The success of the “practice” part of this year’s theme will continue to lag behind the “policy” part, unless there is a single comprehensive maritime policy framework that ties all the maritime institutions of Pakistan together, including ports, fleet, fisheries and training institutions.
