Maritime policy development against ship flagging out dilemma using a fuzzy quantified SWOT analysis

The increasing trends of registered shipping tonnage with open registries have influenced the reputation of national registries especially in traditional maritime countries. Hence, the economic and political consequences of the flagging out dilemma have prompted the maritime administrations to seek for an effective strategy plan with a long-term perspective. This study proposed a fuzzy quantified Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis on the case of the flagging out problem in the Turkish maritime industry. Consequently, the originally proposed ‘flagging out strategy development and evaluation matrix’ (FODEM) has the potential to enable a consistent decision aid to international maritime authorities regarding the counteracting of flagging out dilemma.