Expert underscores need for improving ports, logistics facilities

ISLAMABAD: The government should take tangible measures to improve efficiency of ports and allied logistics facilities to compete with emerging economies. There is dire need to take proactive initiatives to upgrade existing infrastructure and develop smart ports through Public-Private-Partnership Model, which will overall enhance capacity, as well as, efficiency of the Maritime Sector in Pakistan, said Muhammad A Rajper, Vice President of International Chamber (Pakistan) at Lecture Series discourse organized by National Tariff Commission (NTC), here the theme “Trade Facilitation in Pakistan: Shipping and Logistic Sector”

“Global focus is widely set on a ‘blue economy’ including the development of smart ports and smart cities. Unfortunately, Pakistan witnessed de-acceleration in that area” stated Rajper, a former Chairman, Pakistan Ship’s Agents Association. He said over past decades Pakistan ports have shown limited progress which cannot be accounted for if we wish to compete with the world’s emerging economies.

He said that a wide R&D gap existed in our maritime sector, hindering new businesses from jumping in. Despite striking development of China’s new automated port, Pakistan still has to play many more cards in order to make its existence visible to the world. Logistic performance index of Pakistan is ranked below than that of India, Sri Lanka and South East Asian countries, which have witnessed tremendous growth in the past decade.

In FY23, Pakistani ports have witnessed a considerable decreasing trend in cargo handling at both Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and Port Qasim Authority (PQA) due to political instability and consequent economic meltdown culminating in austerity measures and import compression. Presently, KPT comprises 33 berths and three container terminals namely KICT, KGTL, and SAPTL. The number of ships handled by KPT in FY23 was 1637, which is a decline from the 1,831 ships that were handled in FY22. In the same year, PQA also saw a significant decrease in the amount of dry bulk cargo (-4.23%), liquid cargo (-16.5%), and container cargo (-23.55%) compared to the previous year. Gwadar Port is arguably the crown jewel of CPEC whose geo-economic importance cannot be stressed enough. Currently, Gwadar comprises three multipurpose berths operated by COPHC and handled 26 vessels in FY23 compared to 39 vessels in FY22.Despite being called a “crown jewel”, Gwadar is not fully operational even after almost two decades.

In his opening remarks, Muhammad Iqbal Tabish, member NTC apprised that the Commission has envisioned a strategy to enhance knowledge base and skills of NTC technical team and in this context, has planned to regularly organise lectures on import areas of trade facilitation by inviting eminent speakers, experts ,academician and practitioner Other members of Commission Imran Zia and Ahmed Sheraz. The session was also attended by Ali Salman, Executive Director, PRIME, an economic think-tank in Islamabad.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023