KARACHI, Jan 26: Foreign shipping lines have decided to impose $100 per Teu terminal congestion surcharge on all imports from February 1.

The surcharge will be imposed on import cargo landing at all the three terminals — Karachi International Container Terminal and Pakistan International Container Terminal at the Karachi Port and Qasim International Container Terminal at Port Qasim.

A shipping company official told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the lines were suffering losses due to worst congestion at these terminals in the aftermath of law and order situation that prevailed following the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto. He said that about 2,000 trailers loaded with containers were burnt down in the violence, which has caused serious shortage of transportation of export and import cargo.

Over a dozen foreign shipping companies touch ports in Pakistan and the country has to pay freight bill of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion per year for executing its foreign trade. The major shipping lines, which will charge surcharge, include Maersk, APL, MSC, CMA, NYK, Happaglloyd, USAC Cosca, MOL, etc.

He said that notices about the surcharge would be sent to their clients by Monday. The shipping lines would, however, review the position at the end of the month and would decide about the withdrawal or otherwise of the surcharge.

To a question the official said that the management of ports and terminals were not responsible for the congestion.

Importers are not clearing their goods due to various reasons.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that due to shortage of trucks and substantial increase in warehousing charges the importers prefer to keep their cargo under demurrage at the terminals as the latter’s rates are lower than the former.

The shipping lines representatives, who met recently, have also decided to reduce demurrage-free period for imports from the existing seven days to five days also from February 1. It was also decided to double the detention charges for cargo lying at the terminal after the demurrage-free days.

The official further said that the terminals staff failed to load complete cargo onto ships during the specific period as the loading moves by the cranes have been reduced from 75 moves per hour to 20 to 25 due to congestion at their terminal. As a result the ships leave with incomplete load causing loss to the lines in freight.

The shipping lines fear that the congestion would take a further worst turn with the anticipated import of about 0.5 million bales of cotton to meet the domestic shortage.

According to shipping industry sources the container terminals management having taken a serious view of the congestion have decided to impose penalty on cargo not cleared within 48 hours of the discharge. The penalty rates will be Rs5,000 for a 20 ft container and Rs10,000 for a 40 ft box.

The management of all the three terminals have issued notices to the importers that the new charges will be effective from February 1.

The shipping lines had imposed cargo surcharge at the Karachi Port owing to congestion in 90s which was removed with the establishment of a modern container terminal the port.