KARACHI, March 4: The chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Mohammad Afzal Tahir, said that the international community and regional countries should focus on ‘key factors’ that could ensure sustainable and equitable use of ocean.

He was speaking at the International Maritime Conference on ‘Maritime threats and opportunities in the 21st century: a global perspective on the Indian Ocean’ at Bahria University here on Sunday.

The naval chief said that these key factors were maritime-related economies, security of maritime domain and protection of maritime environment. Referring to the ever increasing sea-borne trade, he said that the volume of this trade could be gauged from the fact that world's sea-borne trade was estimated to exceed 41 billion tons by 2014.

Admiral Tahir termed the plying of more than 30,000 ships across the ocean for trade transactions as the most challenging issue for security management.

The Indian Ocean routes serve as one the busiest highways in the world for global exchange of commodities/ goods and services, he pointed out.

He said it was, therefore, obvious that any hurdle in the flow of maritime traffic through Indian Ocean would lead to disastrous consequences for the world economies. Another area of concern for the maritime sector is marine environmental conservation which is being threatened due to overfishing, oil pollution, dumping of industrial waste in sea, marine minerals exploitation and climatic changes due to global warming which he termed as the greatest single threat.

The naval chief invited world's focus on these issues so that a sustainable and equitable use of the ocean could be ensured.

He said that all the stakeholders of the Indian Ocean must work together and engage in establishing cooperative and progressing regimes for the collective benefits from the Indian Ocean’s resources.

He hoped that the conference would provide a wide spectrum of thought processing. “I am confident that this conference would cover a wide and diverse range of issues relating to the Indian Ocean, maritime domain and clear identifications which will lead to better recommendations and decisions to set the course of future strategies,” the naval chief said.He thanked the Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan and the Sindh government for lending all-out support in organising the three- day international conference.—APP