Steps being taken to strengthen shipping industry
RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI (July 29 2005): Gwadar Port is ideally located for establishing shipbuilding and repairing facilities for foreign shipping lines. The government was taking many steps to strengthen shipping industry by providing policy guidelines to encourage ship-owners, maintain safety standards and ensure efficiency of the ports through landlord port concept.
These views were expressed by additional secretary ministry of ports and shipping Captain Anwar Shah while speaking on the occasion of Silver Jubilee celebrations of Association of Shippers Council of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (ASCOBIPS) here on Thursday.
He said all Pakistan's ports are located at key geographic position to provide facilities to foreign shipping lines and highly favourable for investment as well as receptive to proposals.
Highlighting the shipping policy, Anwar Shah said it provides duty-free import of ships. There would be no additional war risk insurance involved in shipping policy as it is investment-friendly thus Pakistan would welcome investment in owning ship under Pakistan's flag.
He said that more industrial economic zones were being developed for prospective investors.
"Pakistan has full-fledged institutions to groom seafarers for all kind of ships like Pakistan Marine Academy, KPT Staff College, etc and it has skilled and trained seafarers, inferior to none." Meanwhile, Captain Shah added, Pakistan Marine Academy was being upgraded to a university.
He also gave operational account of Karachi Port Trust and Port Qasim and said that both had standard facilities for handling of ships and further transhipment of cargo. "These ports have many things on its agenda to attract more business and investment."
Chairman Pakistan Shippers Council Abdur Rashid Janmohammad in his speech said that bilateral shipping protocols exist between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The general opinion in shipping circles is that these protocols have outlived their usefulness and the countries concerned should follow the international conventions and give up the dependence on bilateral agreement to support the national fleets, he added.
The PSC chief said presently there is no effective system in Pakistan for monitoring and channelling the trade to national carriers. In Pakistan, Janmohammad said, Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) has virtually gone out of the container trade and does not have regular liner services of any consequence and added that in the absence of these there is hardly any effective achievement of the objectives of the bilateral agreements.
"Present shipping protocol between Pakistan and India restricts each other's flag vessels from freely calling and loading cargoes. Ships can only load bilateral cargoes. Third counties cargoes are not allowed unless prior permission is taken. To export to India, no objection certificate (NOC) is required from the PNSC to ship consignment on any other line."
He suggested that ports and shipping ministry should assist by convincing the authorities to do away with NOC requirement and make needed changes in the policy.
Janmohammad said Pakistan's trade with Bangladesh was increasing with the passage of time. "The import of Jute into Pakistan has increased from 80,000 tonnes to 140,000 tonnes in last three years." He, however, said that there is no regular service between Karachi and Chittagong and the shippers are unable to plan their shipments.
The PSC chief said PNSC and Bangladesh Shipping Corporation should develop a regular service between the two countries, which is the long-standing demand of shippers of both countries.
Janmohammad said that Pakistan has recently signed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Sri Lanka, which will increase trading activities. But, he said, again there is no regular service being run by flag vessels between Karachi and Colombo. "We suggest that regular and more frequent services should be encouraged between Karachi and Colombo to take care of the increased trade volumes expected."
ASCOBIPS chairman Mohammad Farhad Ahamed Akanda, Sri Lanka Shippers Council chairman Noel Priyatilleke, Asian Shippers Council chairman John Lu and Western India Shippers Association president Srinivasan also spoke on the occasion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2005