Mongolia Now Offering Ship Registry Services

The sign says "Maritime Administration" over the door of the one room office which has a handful of computers, a fax machine, ship models for d?cor, and two civil servants that oversee the "Mongolia Ship Registry."

"We earned the treasury about $200,000 last year," Bazarragchaa Altan-Od, head of the Maritime Administration. "We have 20 to 30 new ship registrations each month, and the number is increasing."

Mongolia is the largest land locked country in the world, with its capital approximately 1,000 miles from an ocean. The registry opened in February, 2003.

It appears that Mongolia Ship Registry is managed by a ship registry company based out of Singapore named "Sovereign Ventures," which is owned by Chong Koy Sen. Chong also owns Cambodia Shipping Corp, which is the major registry for North Korea.

The Mongolia Ship Registry is now handling numerous North Korean ships.
Vessels under the North Korean flag have been under scrutiny by the United States and other countries around the world for illicit cargoes such as drugs or nuclear weapon fuels.

With or without North Korean vessels, Mongolia is registering anything that floats and can pay the fee.