Containership Flag Selection: The Opening of Direct Shipping between Taiwan and China

Table 1

Flag selection items used for surveys.

Items	Descriptions
Efficiency of authority	Authority’s efficiency in processing ships register.
Vessels recruited in war	The obligation of ships recruitment in war.
Registry qualifications acquired	The complexity to fit in with registry qualifications acquired by the Agreement; for example, Taiwanese container shipping companies who want to register their ships in China have to apply business strategies such as joint venture with Chinese companies to meet China’s close registry system.
Direct shipping licenses	The different difficulty level of acquiring approvals between Taiwan and China.
Crew costs	The different level of crew costs resulting from different manning policy requirements in register location.
Dual class expenses	Ships registered in Taiwan have to prepare both certifications issued by China Corporation Register of Shipping (CR) and one of the members of International Association of Classification Societies (IACS).
Financing costs	Ship register in different location accompanies with different level of financing costs.
Tax-related expenses	Different level of tax-related expenses among Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
Employment requirement for Taiwanese seafarers	Ships registered in Taiwan have to meet the requirement of the Regulations Governing the Management and Employment of Foreign National Seafarers.
Complying with PSC requirements	Ship’s register location is an important checking item for port state control (PSC) inspection.
Cargo considerations	Shipping companies that registered their ships in a location which have sufficient cargoes might have more opportunity to expand business scale.
Prohibitions of the employment of Chinese seafarers	Seafarers from China have become the majority of foreign seafarers employed by Taiwanese shipowners, but state-owned ships in Taiwan cannot recruit seafarers from China.