On January 11, the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration issued a crew training license to Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology, making it the first to obtain the license issued by the administration. It also marks that this administration has become the only provincial maritime institution with the authority to empower crew training institutions in China.

According to the current system, a normal crew can only be promoted to a captain or a first officer only after training. Under the construction of the Hainan Free-Trade Port, the Hainan shipping industry has witnessed rapid development with much more ships registered and huger demand for crew vocational training. Due to historical reasons such as inadequate trainers, there have been no authorized training institutions with captain and first officer training qualifications in the province. Crew can only gain training outside the island, which is costly and time-consuming and restricts stable development.

The license given to Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology means that captains and first officers registered in Hainan can be re-certified locally. And those registered outsides can be promoted in Hainan as long as they have completed training here.

“We will probably encourage Guangxi and western Guangdong's crew to receive training in our college, in this way we can basically cover the whole of South China in terms of training,” said Li Donglou, dean of Maritime College of Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology. 

An Lijun, deputy director of Crew Management Department of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration told the reporter that for the next step, by combining the hardware and software facilities of the training institutions under our jurisdiction, crew management department aim to further improve the training programs and develop more high-quality crew for the shipping enterprises of the Hainan Free-Trade Port.