Plans to Ban Ships Older than 40 Years from Using Russian Ports would Threaten Economy More Generally, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 3 – Russia’s Unified Shipbuilding Corporation wants to ban ships older than 40 years from using ports as of 2030, but that would require massive investments in shipbuilding Moscow lacks the funds for and the creation of shipbuilding capacity far larger than anyone thinks possible.

            There are so many Russian ships which will be older than 40 years, experts say, by that point that Moscow would have to build ten times as many ships each year than it has been over the last five years or lose the capacity that those ships represent and see fishing and cargo carrying collapse in many sectors (sibmix.com/?doc=18305).

            Because of such prospects, the plan is unlikely to be adopted or at least followed; and ever more ships will be too old to be safe, increasing the prospects that there will be more accidents and leaks in Russian ports, developments that will reduce the carrying capacity of Russia’s civil shipping branch on their own if not by as much as an outright ban.

            The likelihood of one or the other of these prospects mean that none of Moscow’s economic predictions which rely on shipping has much chance of being true and that in some cases, experts suggest, the outcomes are likely to be disastrous and domino-like hit other parts of the economy as well.