Starting in 1999 the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has started publishing Weekly Piracy Reports on the website of the ICC-IMB. The incidents mentioned in these weekly reports concern warnings and incidents which have been reported during the week on the past week before publication. Incidents reported after this week are not included in later weekly reports. These are included, however in the Quarterly Reports of the IMB and in the Annual Report which is published each year in January. Warnings reported in the Weekly Reports may also later turn out to be false and are consequently not included in the Quarterly Reports and the Annual Report. Incidents in the reports of the IMB include, of course, armed robbery incidents but for simplicity I call all incidents here piracy incidents.

In the picture below the weekly reported (actual) incidents in 2001 are compared to the final figures for these weeks in the annual report for 2001:

The tables below contain the specific numbers reported in the Weekly Reports against the reported numbers in the Annual Report. The difference between the numbers in the Weekly Reports and those in the Annual Report give a good indication of the delay which is often caused by belated reporting of incidents. The difference can be negative as well because of faults in the initially reported dates of incidents.

Week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
Weekly reports	3	7	6	4	3	2	4	4	4	6	7	4	3	4	6	6
Annual Report	7	9	8	6	6	3	7	4	3	6	7	6	10	6	8	7
difference	4	2	2	2	3	1	3	0	-1	0	0	2	7	2	2	1

Week	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
Weekly reports	6	1	7	1	10	3	6	8	6	13	6	8	6
Annual Report	5	4	7	4	12	5	2	13	12	12	8	8	5
Difference	-1	3	0	-3	2	2	-4	5	6	-1	2	0	-1

Week	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42
Weekly reports	3	3	7	7	5	7	4	3	5	6	4	2	8
Annual Report	2	5	10	7	6	8	5	3	6	7	5	2	8
difference	-1	2	3	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	0	0

Week	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52
Weekly reports	4	6	3	2	10	2	11	7	6	5
Annual Report	4	6	4	3	11	2	14	8	7	2
difference	0	0	1	1	1	0	3	1	1	-3

Based on these figures the general difference between reported incidents in the Weekly Reports for 2001 against the reported incidents in the Annual Report is 4 : 5. Four incidents are reported soon and are included in the Weekly report and afterwards (belatedly) often another incident for the same week is reported. The same appears if you compare the total figures of the Weekly Reported incidents (272) with the total of the annual report (335). This suggests that the reported incidents are reported faster than last year when the general difference was 2 : 3. A correction needs to be made, however, for incidents which were initially reported to the Piracy Reporting Centre but were not included in the annual report. The number of weekly incidents not included in the annual report is 20. If we compare the corrected total figures of the Weekly Reported incidents (252) with the total of the annual report (335) we get a general difference of 3 : 4. This still suggests that the reported incidents are reported faster than last year when the general difference was 3 : 5. Apparently the Piracy Reporting Centre receives more reports sooner.
The general trend for 2001 is a gradual decrease in reported incidents over the year. Especially the second half of 2001 saw a decrease in reported incidents. According to the Annual Report for 2001 the countries with the most reported incidents (actual + attempted) are Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria the Malacca Straits and Red Sea areas. Attacks on vessels in the Malacca Straits has decreased significantly from 75 attacks in 2000 to 17 attacks in 2001. The main targets for pirates are Bulk carriers, Tankers, General cargo vessels, Container ships and Chemical or LPG Tankers. Attacks on smaller vessels (like yachts and fishing boats) has increased. The number of attacks on container vessels and General cargo vessels has decreased.
There was an decrease in attacks on vessels which were underway: 130 in 2001 as opposed to 146 in 2000, and also a decrease in attacks on vessels at anchor: 156 in 2001 as opposed to 210 in 2000. The number of attacks on berthed vessels decreased less steeply: 46 in 2001 as opposed to 50 in 2000. This suggests that maritime security near ports has increased. A worrying trend is the increase in kidnappings for ransom in the Malacca Straits and in the Red Sea area.

Sources:

• Weekly Piracy Reports of the IMB in 2001
• Piracy and armed robbery against ships - annual report: 1st January-31st December 2001. - Barking, United Kingdom : ICC International Maritime Bureau, Piracy Reporting Cenre, 2002 January