Stranded containers: Govt decides to waive demurrage, port charges

KARACHI: The Federal Government has decided to waive all demurrage and port charges of around 8000 containers stranded at the country’s ports.

This was announced the Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Faisal Subzwari at a press conference after meeting of the stakeholders here on Monday.

Earlier, a high level meeting jointly chaired by Federal Minister for Commerce Syed Naveed Qamar and Minister for Maritime Affairs Syed Faisal Subzwari was held at KPT Head Office in which all the stakeholders from government, as well as, private sector participated to resolve containers detention issue being faced by the trade community in Pakistan.

Subzwari said it was a serious issue that has made the business community restless after shortage of dollars to settle the LCs for these containers. He announced that the government will issue notification soon.

Although there were some difficulties as thousands of containers of shipping lines have stuck up at ports, the minister said. However, he refuted the reports that shipping lines are planning to wind up their operations from Pakistan.

“Nothing of this sort would happen, as we have had talks with the shipping lines and have asked them to facilitate our businesses,” he added.

The representatives of shipping lines and container terminals were also present in the meeting along with the other stakeholders and deliberated upon the issue at length to resolve the problems.

He also announced that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) would soon be given a status of an off-dock terminal, and all stranded containers will be shifted there, which will eliminate congestion on port and issues of the shipping lines and terminal operators.

The minister said that Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT), which has a 20-acre off-dock terminal, will provide these facilities to the business community for free.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023