UKHO Adds Chinese Coastal Data
UKHO has announced that Chinese ENCs will be released into Admiralty Vector Chart Service (AVCS) from 30th April 2009. The new Chinese coverage will, for the first time, make it possible for world shipping to use ENCs when sailing from Hong Kong to the Chinese Mainland and navigate using a single official ENC service for complete passage on important intra-Asia trade routes.
In total 252 new Chinese ENCs are being released covering the thousands of square miles of Chinese coastal waters and all their major ports. The new charts are being made available under a Bilateral Agreement between the UKHO and its respected colleagues, the Chinese MSA, which makes UKHO the only authorised international distributor of the data.
China's significance to world trade is considerable and the newly available additional coverage will be of keen interest to world shipping preparing for mandation of ECDIS from 2012 onwards. It is the world's third largest trading power, behind the US and Germany, with a total international trade of USD2.56trn: USD1.43trn in exports and USD1.13trn in imports in 2007. For US and European markets, it sits at the confluence of thriving intra-Asia trade routes for energy, manufacturing and consumer cargoes.
Since its launch in April 2008, UKHO has been rapidly increasing the ENC coverage its AVCS service provides to ensure the trade routes between 1,795 ports worldwide are covered. It has also been continuously improving the service in direct response to customer feedback. Significant new ENCs produced recently by the UKHO include new charts for the Malacca Strait, Red Sea, passage through Suez Canal and along the coast of North Africa. The service now includes more than 9,500 ENCs and comes with the added assurance of the Admiralty weekly updating service both online and on CD for all charts.
