KARACHI, April 25: The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) has increased the charges for storage of imported goods at the port to Rs7 per ton from Rs4 per ton. However, a seven-day free period has been allowed for the storage as an extra facility.

This was stated by Traffic Manager, KPT, Commodore Syed Hussain Bin Khamis in a meeting with members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

He said import tariff at KPT has been revised after nine years and the duty rates have been rationalized. He added that rationalization of tariff was necessary since the expenses on cargo handling had increased manifold during the last decade.

He said import tariff has been revised by doing away with categorization of the cargo in three categories (realization of the duty on simple dead weight, double dead weight and thrice dead weight) and naturally the average rates have been adopted.

Khamis said that tariff on liquid cargo would soon be reduced to Rs34 from Rs51 per ton.

He said the storage area of the port is being expanded by acquiring 51 acres in Jungle Shah area. The entire auctionable cargo would be shifted to new bonded area to provide more space for the imported goods at the port.

He said cargo trucks would not stuck up on account of any fault in computerized system and they would be cleared within three minutes. In case of any complaint by importers — stern action would be taken against the officials.

The traffic manager took serious notice of the complaints against the shipping agents regarding excessive charging under different unknown duties and asked the office-bearers of the shipping agents association present on the occasion to scrutinize the matter.