MINISTRY OF ECONOMY
AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OF GEORGIA

Georgia will join the Long Range Identification and Tracking of the Cooperative Data Centre of the European Union. Georgia is the first Easter Partnership Country to join the system.

The European Union has adopted a decision on accepting Georgia to the vessel identification and monitoring system based on the study of the situation in the country’s maritime transport sector. The EU has been discussed the request on a membership of Georgia for about a year. The maritime sector of Georgia has undergone one-year monitoring and on the basis of strict criteria, has successfully overcome all the necessary stages towards the membership.

As a result, each EU member state voted for Georgia’s membership of the Cooperative Data Centre of the European Union. This kind of integration directly into European services is one of the first cases in the history of Georgia-EU relations.

Georgia, by engaging in the system, will have an opportunity to receive information about the vessels sailing under its flag automatically every 6 hours from any point of the world. At the same time, according to the request, the country can receive information on any vessel that is crossing the EU waters within the boundaries of 1000 marine miles. In addition, Georgia has access to the European Union LRIT system with access to the world wide web network of LRIT and its member-states in terms of exchanging the information and cooperation.

It will result in significant increase of Georgia’s maritime sector in the global maritime system and Georgia will become a member of the prestigious European institution, which will have direct positive reflection on the image of Georgian flag.

Georgia’s capacity to provide the marine security, the sea-search and rescue as well as to improve the marine environment will also increase significantly. Thus, the LRIT CDC membership is an effective tool for combating piracy and protecting the sailors.

The ships' identification and monitoring system in the long run of EU countries is today the most modern and large data management center involved in the global LRIT system, which monitors 8000 ships during the day.

The EU LRIT CDC is one of the largest data centres in the LRIT system that provides monitoring of over 8000 ships a day.