On October 24th, the Sixth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress revised and adopted the Marine Environment Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (referred to as “Marine Environment Protection Law”), which will come into implementation as of January 1, 2024. The revised Marine Environment Protection Law has the following highlights:

Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation (Standardization Administration) approved the release of two national standards for multimodal transport, namely “Classification and Codes of Goods for Multimodal Transport” (GB/T 42820-2023) and “Identification of Transportation Units for Multimodal Transport” (GB/T 42933-2023). These standards lay the foundation for further enhancing comprehensive transportation efficiency and reducing social logistics costs.

Recently, the Ministry of Transport and seven other departments jointly issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Intermodal Transportation with the ‘Single Document System’ and ‘Single Container System’” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”), aiming to promote the optimization of transportation structure, and enhance the quality and efficiency of comprehensive transportation services.

The Ministry of Transport (MOT) published on its official website the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on International Maritime Transportation (Revised Draft for Comments), soliciting public opinions, and after reading it, we would like to briefly comment on the Revised Draft as follows:

Recently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) formally released the Interim Guidelines on Safe Operation of Onshore Power Supply (OPS) Service in Port for Ships Engaged on International Voyages by Circular MSC.1/Circ.1675, which was compiled under the leadership of China. The Guidelines provides a global unified safety operation standard for the use of onshore power by ships in port engaged on international voyages, which successfully fills the gap of IMO in this field.

On July 5, the CMLA COLLOQUIUM ON MARITIME LAW 2023 CUM ACADEMIC FORUM ON THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARITIME CODE, organized by the China Maritime Law Association (CMLA), was successfully held at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. The theme of the forum was “Looking Back to Thirty Years and Looking Forward to the Future - Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Implementation of the Maritime Code of PRC”. Representatives from the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Transport and other relevant departments, as well as academics, enterprises and lawyers attended the forum.