SIMIC

The group of six international shipping organisations, which includes the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) said from the start of next year the Indian Ocean would no longer be considered high risk as there had been no attacks on merchant vessels off Somalia since 2018.

"This announcement is a testament to nearly 15 years of dedicated collaboration to reduce the threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean," it said in a statement.

A vital thoroughfare for energy exports from the Middle East to Europe, the coast of Somalia was deemed high risk after piracy and ransom demands surged from 2008 and peaked three years later.

Just under 10 per cent of global seaborne petroleum trade goes through the Gulf of Aden, the waterway between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

John Stawpert, senior manager of environment and trade at ICS, said removing Somalia's designation as a high risk area would probably reduce the number of private armed guards - who are often former servicemen - deployed on ships travelling through the region.

Dimitris Maniatis, chief commercial officer at Seagull Maritime, a private maritime security firm, said that private guards together with naval deployments had helped to reduce piracy.

In December, the UN Security Council said there were no successful pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia last year, noting that "joint counter-piracy efforts have resulted in a steady decline in pirate attacks and hijackings" since 2011. It added that there had been no successful ship hijackings for ransom since March 2017.

However, the UN warned that "suspicious approaches towards merchant vessels in the region were observed indicating that progress achieved in combating piracy could be reversed if not consolidated."