KARACHI, Aug 23: The goods transporters’ strike, which entered its fifth consecutive day on Saturday, has inflicted hundreds of millions of rupees loss to importers and exporters, besides badly hurting commodity supplies to other parts of the country.

The ongoing strike has resulted in piling up of over 4,500 containers at Karachi and Qasim port and importers will have to pay over Rs500 million in demurrage and detention fee before getting these consignments cleared.

Many exporters have either lost their contracts or have compelled to airlift their consignments to save Letters of Credit (LCs) opened with foreign buyers.

Manufacturers are complaining that piling up of export goods in their stores has not only caused space shortage but has also disturbed their cash flow.

Perturbed by the prolonged truckers’ strike, the exporters, importers, manufacturers and custom agents are of the unanimous view that the government is not focusing on economic stability of the country.

Karachi Customs Agents Association (KCAA) General Secretary Muhammad Arshad Jamal told Dawn that over 4,500 containers were piled up at Pakistan International Container Terminal, Karachi International Container Terminal and Qasim International Container Terminal.

He said on an average importers would have to pay around Rs100 million per day towards demurrage and detention fee for the blocked and piled up containers.

All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) Chairman Syed Shams Ahmed Burney told Dawn that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani requesting his intervention in the matter.

He said the prime minister had been informed that due to ongoing transporters’ strike international shipping lines had started refusing consignments for Pakistan owing to delay in handling of cargo at the ports.

A spokesman for Customs said that processing of import and export cargo documents at Karachi Customs had been normal for the last five days. However, in the absence of transport facility importers were unable to clear their cargo and no export cargo had entered port areas.

Pakistan Leather Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (Plgmea) chairman Fawad Ijaz Khan said that finished leather garments worth over Rs20 million have piled up in his factory and he finds no space for further storage as exports have come to a grinding halt.

He said there seemed to be nobody in the government with whom the industry could contact or seek their intervention for resolving the issue so that transporters call off their strike.

Pakistan Bedwear Exporters Association (PBEA) Chairman Shabir Ahmed said that presently his manufacturing unit was faced with shortage accessories which were mostly imported for value-addition.

He said that raw material shortage was causing double loss as we had to pay labour without getting production and exports were threatened and may also face cancellation of orders.

Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (Prgmea) Chairman Bilal Mulla said export consignments were piled up at factories as the transporters had parked their vehicles and were refusing to pick consignments for ports unless their demands were met.

Due to precarious situation, he said, manufacturers-cum-exporters were faced with multiple problems of piled up finished goods meant for exports, liquidity problem and fear of losing their foreign buyers.

At the time of filing this story leaders of the Supreme Council of All Karachi Transport Ittihad was holding a meeting and no one was available to update their position.

The Karachi Transport Ittihad on August 9 had presented their eight-point charter of demand which included reduction in diesel price, compensation for vehicles lost on Dec 27, 2007 riots and arson and reduction in taxes.

However, no federal government minister or functionary so far came forward to hold negotiations with the striking transporters.