KARACHI, Oct 4: Karachi Port Trust (KPT) Chairman Vice-Admiral Ahmad Hayat on Monday said the conceived 'cargo village' with an estimated cost of Rs2.383 billion would be initially funded by the port itself as no private sector entity was ready to take risk at this juncture until things get going.

Speaking at a seminar on "Cargo Village" organized by the KPT, Mr Hayat said there was a great possibility that the cost would escalate and initial work take four years to complete.

He said that there could be some variance in the initial plan because such mega projects took longer period than they are originally envisaged. However, Mr Hayat said that after completing the basic infrastructure, the KPT in later stages would involve the private sector in different ways because the ultimate objective was to transform the KPT into a regulatory body, not to involve in running port operations in any form.

"As the city of Karachi has developed around the port, therefore, the only way to expand the Karachi Port is to develop a well-connected satellite extension to the port. The development like cargo village will put our resources to correct use, generate trade activity, supplement national economy and provide uplift to the port vicinity," the KPT chairman added.

The cargo village, he said, was planned in the western backwaters with an initial area of about 350 acres, with a phase-wise expansion. The cargo village concept is that of a satellite to a port.

A port is essentially a transit facility. It may have warehouses, but it is not an extended warehousing area. A cargo village is a composite of many diverse infrastructural measures consisting of both bonded and non-bonded area for containerized and other cargo.

Mr Hayat said the village would comprise facilities for value-addition and a swift multi modal connectivity to the hinterland. "While the Karachi Port is expanding its infrastructure in partnership with the private sector, a promising potential for transhipment and transit trade awaits our entrepreneurs."

The village would prove to be an ideal nexus in synchronizing services with market demands, enabling the Karachi Port to make its mark in the region, he added.

"The myth of Karachi not being close to the main shipping routes is being proven wrong because both our container terminals, the KICT and the PICT, are doing very well and are expanding beyond their planned capacities, he said, adding a feasibility study for a deep draught container terminal at Keamari Groyne was in advance stages and the KPT is already receiving offers for investment and operations.

The KPT chairman said these developments spoke of the potential "we have for transhipment and transit cargo and this flurry of activities harbinger the emergence of the Karachi Port as an important region port."

The cargo village, therefore, was a step in the right direction to augment the development strategy in the regional perspective, he added. "In this project, we see an opportunity to provide impetus to the economy by revitalizing trade and transport and generating industrial and commercial activities."

Mr Hayat said so far the KPT had not aggressively tapped this potential and had not optimally maintained the niche it once enjoyed in the region. "It is now the right time for all of us to pool our resources and enable the port to emerge as a prominent link in the regional trade."

General Manager, Planning and Development KPT, Brig Syed Jamsheed Zaidi, said the Karachi Port had an area of 100 hectares. Its annual cargo handling is about 27 million tons, out of which 13 million tons is dry cargo, including 812,000 TEUs of containerized cargo.

Although currently, he said the port traffic catered to national demands and transhipment cargo was meagre, area limitations for containers as well as bulk and break-bulk cargo hampered efficient port operations.

Mr Zaidi said that tradesmen and cargo handlers were face with difficulties in arranging storages in the scattered warehouses, and inefficiencies manifest in makeshift arrangements could never be overstated.

He says that today when regional trade cashes upon haulage time reduced by minutes, Pakistani traders come across days of delays due to broken roads, unapproachable warehouses, queuing in clearances and absence of centralized systems.

In order to address these issues a concept of an efficient, well-connected, multimodal set-up providing integrated facilities for cargo handling, storage, processing, value-addition, re-export, clearance and transportation was conceived in the form of a cargo village, he maintained.

The second session of the seminar was chaired by Director General Ports and Shipping Capt Anwar Shah. He cautioned that the port would be needing a changed concept for dealing with all together different world which it was going to develop.

There will be a need for having different class of tug boats, pilot boats and other facilities to meet the upgradation in draught and handling of larger vessels.

Director, Excise and Customs, Wahid Khurshid Kanwar, highlighted customs rules, procedure and facilitation. Among other speakers was R.A. Lawler, Project Manager, Louis Berger International, US, a consultant who prepared feasibility of the cargo village.

Ahsan Siddiqui spoke on the development of infrastructure network communication and Khurram Abbas read his paper on contribution of cargo village in the promotion of container trade.