The Paris MoU 2025 Annual Report benchmarks Arab maritime performance within the broader global compliance landscape, highlighting variations in flag State effectiveness and reinforcing the critical role of Port State Control (PSC) in maintaining maritime safety and regulatory compliance. The findings place particular emphasis on Arab countries’ standings within the White and Grey Lists, while also situating their performance against global benchmarks. As regulatory scrutiny increases, the report underscores that strong flag State governance, effective safety management systems, and high-quality certification remain essential to reducing detention risks and ensuring compliance with international maritime conventions.
Regional Rankings
The report underscores both progress and ongoing challenges among Arab nations in maritime safety, operational standards, and environmental compliance. Saudi Arabia is ranked 26th on the White List, reflecting consistent adherence to international safety standards and effective Port State Control (PSC) enforcement.
By comparison, Algeria is ranked 47th, Lebanon 51st, Egypt 53rd, and Tunisia is also listed on the Grey List, indicating the need for continued improvements in flag State oversight and regulatory compliance. Common deficiencies include weaknesses in safety management systems, inspection findings, and non-compliance with key international conventions such as SOLAS, MARPOL, and MLC 2006.
Although the overall detention rate across the Arab region remains below the Paris MoU regional average of 4.18%, the Grey List status of several countries highlights persistent compliance risks. These findings reinforce the need to strengthen onboard safety practices, improve certification accuracy, and enhance flag State oversight. Saudi Arabia continues to serve as a regional benchmark, demonstrating the value of proactive regulation, continuous training, and closer international cooperation.
Global Performance
On the global level, the report identifies a number of high-performing flags that continue to demonstrate strong compliance with international standards. China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Greece, Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom all retain their positions on the White List, with Singapore and Japan recording particularly low detention rates that reflect mature safety cultures, rigorous oversight, and high-quality certification processes.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Black List comprises ten flags: Saint Kitts and Nevis, Palau, Togo, Guinea-Bissau, Belize, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Comoros, Tanzania, and Cameroon. Among these, Cameroon records a detention rate exceeding 34%, highlighting serious shortcomings in flag State control that are likely compounded by fraudulent registrations and false certification.
The report also confirms the strong correlation between flag performance and PSC detention risk. High-risk flags consistently record detention rates well above the Paris MoU average, while vessels certified by leading recognized organizations (ROs), including ABS, DNV, KR, Lloyd’s Register, Bureau Veritas, RINA, ClassNK, and China Classification Society, continue to demonstrate stable performance.
By contrast, ships associated with smaller and less established organizations are linked to significantly higher levels of deficiencies.
In addition, the report identifies emerging enforcement challenges, noting that some substandard ships avoid PSC inspections by limiting calls to Paris MoU ports, while the growing use of fraudulent flags and false certificates underscores the need for stronger international cooperation between port authorities, flag administrations, and certifying bodies.
Stakeholder Impacts
The findings carry important implications for shipowners, charterers, insurers, and regulators. Selecting high-performing flags with proven compliance records has become increasingly important, as flag performance directly influences detention risk, operational reliability, and insurance considerations.
The report also notes that 19 ships were refused access to Paris MoU ports in 2025, demonstrating the operational consequences of repeated non-compliance and weak safety management.
More broadly, PSC performance has evolved beyond a measure of inspection outcomes and is now widely regarded as an indicator of a vessel's overall safety culture, technical management, implementation of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, crew competency, and certification quality.
As environmental regulations, crew welfare requirements, and documentation standards become increasingly stringent, effective management systems and sustained international cooperation will remain essential to reducing compliance risks and strengthening global maritime safety.
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