KARACHI: All Pakistan Timber Traders Association (APTTA) has demanded of the government to allow cutoff date for all the Bill of Ladings and complete waiver of detention and demurrage until February 28, 2023.

Chairman APTTA Sharjil Goplani said that wood importers are facing lot of difficulties getting the cargo cleared from the port even after paying the full invoice amounts to the banks.

“Our banks have completely stopped releasing original documents despite paying the full amount to the banks.” This became serious upon the circular dated 27th Dec., 2023 issued by State bank of Pakistan.

Because of the non-release of original documents and bill of lading by the banks, there is an enormous amount of detention charges being piled up, he said and added that importers will be impeded by the shipping companies or their agents and that makes it miserable and the stakeholders incur losses and losses will set the business community out.

He expressed his fear that due to heavy ongoing detention and demurrage, the value of imported goods will be more than the invoice value of the entire cargo and importers will not be able to lift the cargo out of the port with all this government will lose its revenue and business community will go out of business; only the shipping companies and port authorities will be making money that too in US dollars and charge heavy rate for USD.

He requested the federal government including Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Commerce Minister and Minister for Maritime Affairs to urgently intervene in this matter and allow cutoff date for all the Bill of Ladings issued until February 28, 2023. He also demanded of the government to announce complete waiver of detention and demurrage until February 28, 2023 as there is no fault on importers’ part.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023