Working meeting with the director of Norwegian PRIMAR, Mr. Hans Christoffer Lauritzen, was held on Tuesday 1 April 2014 on the HHI premises. PRIMAR, of which HHI is full member, is one of the two international centres for distribution of official electronic navigational charts (ENC), ensuring availability of Croatian ENCs to end users on ships.

The meeting was attended by the HHI director Mr. Nenad Leder and his assistant for international cooperation Mr. Željko Bradarić. Several items of topical interest were on the agenda. Cooperation so far and current agreements were analyzed, as well as topical issues about challenges faced by national hydrographic offices, and thus HHI, of providing high-quality and easily accessible ENCs, in the light of recently adopted regulations on mandatory carriage of ECDIS and ENC on certain types of ships. Subjects under discussion also involved additional services developed and provided by PRIMAR to the maritime public and military administrations of its members.

Most important among them are as follows: Web Mapping Service for ENC, ENC software package to be used by Port State Control on the ship inspection of compliance with the requirements for ECDIS and ENC, and software tool with local ENCs for the pilot and VTS service.

After extensive discussion, concrete conclusions were adopted, whose realization in the next period would ensure the accomplishment of targeted objectives in respect of ENCs. It has been agreed that HHI will host the 21st Meeting of the PRIMAR Advisory Committee to be held by the end of November this year in Split.

After official part of the meeting, the director of PRIMAR met with the personnel responsible for the production of Croatian ENCs, and visited permanent exhibition of the Museum of Hydrography at the HHI. More detailed information about PRIMAR and its services is available at www.primar.org.