| |
Karachi: The backlog and congestion at Karachi
Ports, occurred due to the lack of berths to discharge wheat,
would be over in a month while in future Gwadar port would
also be used for unloading consignments. Minister for Ports
and Shipping Naveed Qamar said this while talking to media
in a press conference held at KPT head office on Friday. Ports
and Shipping Director General, Asad Qureshi and Saleem Khan,
Secretary Ports and Shipping were also present on the occasion.
‘’Today we are here to review the on ground conditions
of Ports and that is why we are going to visit both the Karachi
Ports in order to cope up with current congestion and backlog
at the ports, said Naveed Qamar. In this regard a committee
has been formed at both federal and provincial levels in which
Ministry of Finance, Ministry of TCP, and Ministry of agriculture
and others have been inducted to deal with the problem. He
said that government has taken some decisions while we will
take more decisions after physically visiting both the ports,
he said. All the four imports of fertilizer, wheat, rice and
cement have caused this congestion, he said adding that the
problem has been created as all these consignments are imported
in the same season while the problem aggravated due to the
closure of some LCS as well. ‘’We are importing
2.5 million tons of wheat due to the shortage in the country
while we had to import fertilizer because we are faced with
its shortage as well, he said. He added that we have imported
rice and cement as well. Minister said that the fertilizer
usage has been increased and bumper rice crop is expected
and that is why the export pressure is also there. He said
that two ship loads have been offloaded at Port Qasim and
TCP is transferring the wheat to its godowns and then it will
be transferred to the country. He said that currently seven
ships of wheat consignments are anchored at Port Qasim while
one ship of each fertilizer and cement are also anchored there.—RT |
