This address by the Secretary-General of Imco was given at a meeting of the Institute in London on 10 March 1976, with a Vice-President, Mrs. Mary Pera, in the Chair.

IT gives me great pleasure to be here today and I should like to thank you most warmly for your kind invitation to speak on the work of the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, or IMCO as it is commonly called. Naturally I do not need much encouragement to talk about Imco but I consider this to be a rather special occasion, because of the long and close association between the Royal Institute of Navigation and Imco. I shall advert again and more fully to this association later.

As you know, Imco is a specialized agency of the United Nations charged with important responsibilities in the maritime field. It was established by the Convention on the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, adopted by the United Nations Maritime Conference held in Geneva in 1948. Imco began life in January 1959 and its Headquarters have been in London from that time.