Brazil’s main ports are still not in compliance with new world maritime anti-terror laws due to bureaucratic red-tape, a government official said on Friday.
The stringent security standards, known as the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code, went into effect July 1 and countries not complying with it could find ships leaving their ports barred from the United States.
“It’s not really a matter of compliance by the ports but more a problem of red tape in processing documentation,” Paulo de Tarso Carneiro, director of the department of ports at Brazil’s Transport Ministry, told Reuters.
Brazil is the world’s No. 1 exporter of sugar, ethanol, coffee and orange juice, and it is expected to become the world’s leading soy and meats exporter in the next year or two.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been enforcing the code on ships coming into U.S. waters. It reported stopping and searching several ships earlier this week, but no Brazilian vessels were reported to be involved.
The United States is the largest consumer of Brazilian goods, and any disruption in the flow of maritime commerce could hurt Brazil’s growing trade surplus.
But Carneiro said Brazil’s main ports -- including Santos, Sepitiba, Rio Grande, Vitoria, Paranagua and others, which were not in compliance as of Friday morning -- should be cleared by the end of the day.
“The government has signed off on security at 184 international ports and terminals, including the main ones,” Carneiro said. “The Navy is responsible for the final step of submitting the documentation to IMO (the International Maritime Organization), and said it should be done this afternoon.”
Ninety percent of all international trade including key commodities such as oil, iron, grains and other farm goods is transported by sea, according to the United Nations.
Washington fears an attack or infiltration by groups such as al-Qaeda from the sea and has vowed to turn away ships that are not security-certified or delay ones that have called at “contaminated ports.”
The regulations, signed by 147 governments, require ports, stevedoring companies and owners of ships larger than 500 tons to draw up plans for responding to a terror threat, implement tighter security around facilities and train staff.
Brazil’s main port of Santos, responsible for about 30 percent of the country’s trade, implemented its basic security standards before the July 1 deadline, according to Mariliza Pereira, who is in charge of the ISPS task force at the port.
“We have much more to do but we put in place what we could to meet initial security requirements. The rest of the measures will come in the next few months,” she said. “It is not in the hands of the Navy.”
Carneiro said ports would have a 180-day grace period to implement the remaining measures of their security plans after which the government would grant full compliance with an annual review, or suspend a port’s ISPS clearance.
