Norwegian International Ship Register


Norwegian International Ship Register or NIS is a separate Norwegian ship register for Norwegian vessels aimed at competing with flags of convenience registers such as Panama and Liberia. Originally proposed by Erling Dekke Næss in 1984, it was established in Bergen in 1987 and is managed by the Norwegian Ship Registers. In 2010, it was the 12th ship register by gross tonnage, representing 1% of the global tonnage.

Objectives

In the years before the register was established, the Norwegian register lost out as it could not compete with lower-cost registers. The main objectives of establishing the register were:
The register has been highly successful and in 2002 there were 880 vessels in the register with a total of around .

Criticism

There has been some criticism of countries that have opened second registers, such as Norway, Germany and Denmark, because there are fewer restrictions on the nationality of the crew and allegedly lower safety standards than the main national register.