The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have committed to work closely together to support seafarers in all of the country’s ports.
On October 21, 2019, Essam M. Alammari, the IMO Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, met Steve Trowsdale, ITF Inspectorate Coordinator, and Mohamed Arrachedi, ITF Arab World Network Coordinator, at ITF House.
During the meeting, a number of issues were discussed including current requests to support seafarers in Saudi ports, greater collaboration between the ITF and the Saudi maritime authorities and the ratification of the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006.
As explained, the closer working relationship between the organizations has already produced a positive outcome with the successful repatriation of five seafarers with their entitled wages from the vessel MKN 205 in Damman port.
The Saudi ports network consists of nine major ports of which six are commercial and the remaining three industrial. They are supervised by Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani), a government agency founded in 1976.
In 2004, the ITF opened its regional office ITF Arab World which now represents more than 35 unions in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf States. The regional office is located in Amman, Jordan.