25 - 26 April 2017, Penang

Under the auspices of the Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea, MIMA and the Malaysian Coastguard has been organising the Maritime Law Enforcement (MLE) Training Workshop since 2014. The aim of the Track 1.5 workshop is to bring together maritime experts on maritime law enforcement and maritime search and rescue from maritime law enforcement agencies around ASEAN to share knowledge and information, experiences and best practices, discuss functional cooperation in building trust and confidence among participating members. 

The 4^th series of the MLE was successfully conducted on 25^th and 26^th April in Penang. Twenty four participants from Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia attended the workshop which was divided into two phases. The classroom phase consisted of experts presenting on maritime security challenges, successful conviction, and search and rescue, while the second day saw participants having the opportunity to sail on board the Malaysian coastguard ships, the KM Marlin and KM Sikuati to witness boarding and maritime search and rescue exercises.

In respect to the aim of the training workshop, participants also had the opportunity to enhance their networking through interactions between the agencies involved. Active participation from the participants made the training workshop livelier, while enhancing the possibility of interoperability through sharing of standard operating procedures and best practices.