New Delhi: The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) is organising the 15th edition of Capacity Building Senior Officers' Meeting (CBSOM-2023) with the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, from December 11 to 15, 2023, informed the Ministry of Defence.

The objective of the meeting is to understand the updated situation of maritime piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia, exchange each other's experiences and evolve best practices to tackle such incidents with a collaborative approach from all the contracting parties.

Being the designated Indian Governor to ReCAAP, Director General Rakesh Pal inaugurated the four-day meeting, which is being attended by international and national subject matter experts and speakers.

A total of 19 international delegates from 15 countries are participating in the meeting. In addition, senior officials from national stakeholders such as the Indian Navy, major ports, state maritime boards, the Directorate General of Shipping, and other maritime organisations are participating in this meeting, the press release said.

The ReCAAP is the first and only regional government-to-government agreement to enhance cooperation to suppress piracy. India became the 10th country to ratify the ReCAAP agreement, enabling it to enter into force on September 4, 2006.

Now, there are 21 countries contracting parties to the ReCAAP agreement. The Government of India has assigned responsibility to the ICG for sharing information on piracy with member countries and the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, Singapore. The ICG had successfully co-hosted capacity-building workshops in India with ReCAAP ISC in 2011, 2017 and 2019, it also added.