Shanghai: China will increase international cooperation to safeguard the rights and interests of its 650,000 seafarers, said top seafarer officials in Shanghai earlier this week.
"China will provide better security for its seafarers through international communication, and speed up the preparation work to ratify the Maritime Labor Convention established in 2006," said Xu Zuyuan, vice-minister of transport, at the second China Seafarer Conference hosted in Shanghai.
China has completed 460 ship escort missions since 2008 in close cooperation with international ship escort forces, escorting 5,000 ships carrying a total of more than 100,000 seafarers through "sensitive waters", including the Gulf of Aden and the Mekong River, Xu said. [27/06/12]
