KARACHI: The Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) is planning to launch a ferry service from the Marina Club, DHA, to Port Qasim to facilitate the daily commuters looking to avoid the city’s traffic jams.

The corporation also planned to buy two oil tankers by the end of the current financial year which would take the number of its tankers to six, said PNSC chairman Arif Elahi at the organisation’s annual general body meeting on Friday.

He said that arrangements to launch a ferry service from Karachi to Pasni, Gwadar and Chabahar, Iran, were in final stages. The proposed service would be a competitive one because the government had waived off port charges for the next 14 years for ferry services.

The PNSC chairman said that despite a global recession in the shipping business his organisation had earned a record profit of Rs2.3 billion in 2015-16 and also declared a dividend of 20 per cent per share.

“This was possible because the PNSC carried cargoes from the public sector as well as private companies and its oil tankers remained engaged for the haulage of POL products throughout the year,” he said.

The PNSC decided to purchase oil tankers after the government, in its budget for 2016-17, had exempted purchase of vessels from duty and taxes.

But the tankers that PNSC would buy would be 10 years old because their cost would be much less as compared to new ones, said Mr Elahi.

He said a tender had already been floated for initiating the ferry service from Karachi to Gwadar, Pasni and Chabahar (Iran).

Published in Dawn October 29th, 2016