Captains submit paperwork to the association indicating how much cargo is on board as well as crew and passengers.
The shipping association, which also oversees crew education, is partly government-funded, but its biggest business is selling insurance to its members.
Its website says about 75 per cent of its 110 billion won ($107 million) budget for 2014 was allocated to its insurance department. The budget for the department dealing with domestic passenger ship safety was 7.4 billion won ($7.2 million). The association has 71 safety inspectors at 13 South Korean ports and its headquarters.
Many of the association's high-level officials come from the ministry of ocean and fisheries, which some say makes it tough for the ministry to scrutinize the group. Ministry officials may be reluctant to question association officials who are former senior public servants, or even their former bosses.
The register, which made the cargo limit evaluation, also is a private entity.
In Europe, North America and Japan, regulation is generally done by public bodies such as the US Coast Guard and the UK's Maritime and Coastal Agency. In Japan, the government checks ships once a year, and conducts unannounced inspections of crew qualification and emergency training.
At the same time, it's common for governments to rely on ship captains to report their loads accurately. It would be virtually impossible to check every boat, experts say.
Since the Seoul disaster, the oceans ministry has been considering taking the job of overseeing passenger-ship safety away from the shipping association, ministry official Kwon Jun-young said. Kwon said they are discussing which agency or agencies should take up on the job.
