Sunday, June 29, 2025
Home News Singapore revises requirements for crew change: Bangladesh extends seafarers' documents validation

Singapore revises requirements for crew change: Bangladesh extends seafarers’ documents validation

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore has revised the requirements for crew changes in Singaporean ports taking into consideration the evolving Covid-19 situation globally.

Majority numbers of Asian crew complete sign-on and sign-off process through Singaporean ports.

In a new circular, the authority enforced severe pre-cautionary measures to prevent spread of the virus through crew change events.

“In view of the evolving Covid-19 situation globally, MPA has enhanced our crew change requirements to safeguard the wellbeing of seafarers undergoing crew change in Singapore as well as Singapore’s populace,” a port marine circular says.

It added sign-on crew is required to serve Stay-Home-Notice (SHN) in the crew’s originating country/region in the period immediately prior to his/her departure flight/ferry to Singapore.

The crew must have a negative result from a Covid-19 test, PCR type, taken at a government-approved testing facility at his/her originating country, not more than 48 hours prior to departure for Singapore.

Unvaccinated crew or fully vaccinated crew should only join his/her ship not more than two days or three days respectively before the date of the ship’s final departure from Singapore.

Sign-off crew must not have gone ashore in the last 14 days before disembarking the ship, must have remained well, and not had contact with any known or suspected case of Covid-19 throughout that period.

The crew must refrain from interacting with shore-based personnel at previous ports of call in the last 14 days.

Unvaccinated sign-on crew and sign-off crew may stay at the designated holding facilities in Singapore for up to 24 hours, while fully vaccinated crew can stay up to 72 hours.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s maritime regulator, the department of Shipping, on Sunday, by updating a previously issued circular said, seafarers certificates of competency (CoC) and certificates of proficiency (CoP) and associated endorsements which have expired or are expiring between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021, shall remain valid, irrespective of whether the seafarer is/was on the ship at the time of expiry or not.

During the revalidation of expired certificates, the new validity shall be issued for a period of five years from the original expiry date.

Consideration will be given to allow seafarers who hold foreign-issued CoC to continue serving onboard Bangladesh Registered Ships, if they are unable to revalidate their CoC before the expiry date due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Sharar Nayel
Bangladesh Correspondent





Latest Posts

UWL announces vessel partnership with Emirates Shipping Line

UWL, a leading American-owned NVOCC (Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier) and global logistics provider, welcomes Emirates Shipping Line as the new vessel partner for its...

Sea-Intelligence: Port Power Rankings

 Sea-Intelligence analyses port performance in terms of schedule reliability, across the 202 deep-sea ports with the largest number of container vessel calls, by creating...

Suez slowdown reshapes Red Sea’s port map

The macro picture of the Red Sea is worsen as canal transits are at half-mast, and the region has relinquished its role as the...

We asked AI: When containers become pools

We asked AI what a container might look like if it was trasformed into a pool. The result? Long steel containers, many of them stacked,...

Transpacific crash may normalise charter market

Containership charter rates, which have defied the freight slump for some time, could be peaking, as some small ships chartered by opportunistic operators for...
error: Content is protected !!