KARACHI, Feb 27: Exporters have complained of frequent shut-out of containerised cargo held back by Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) for inspection. Many export consignments fail to catch up with shipment schedules resulting cancellation of orders or incurring higher air-freight cost to them.

There has been demand from the exporters’ representative bodies to raise the issue at the Federal Export Board (FEB) meeting, which is chaired by the prime minister. However, the demand could not be met despite the fact that several meetings of the FEB had been held.

“We do not oppose the checking and inspection of export goods by the ANF but what we want to emphasis is that since delivery of export consignments on time is a sensitive issue it should be fully ensured that the export containers should not be held back in larger national interest,” a leading exporter told Dawn.

He said that exporters had been complaining about shutting out of containers owing to the ANF inspection for the last two years but so far no tangible system had been introduced to avoid the occurrence.

Quoting one of the recent events, which resulted in shut-out of textile export cargo, he said that his three containers were shut out at Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT) as they were marked by the ANF for inspection and were released after the vessel had sailed out.

Meanwhile, the ANF in one of their replies to the queries made by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat stated that the force had been endeavouring to facilitate export trade by addressing exporters’ problems. The regional chief of the ANF holds meetings with exporters from time to time to sort out their problems and ensure smooth checking of out-bound containers, it added.

It was also resolved at such meetings that the exporters would be provided extra packing material to repack the items opened and checked by the staff.

However, exporters continue to complain that despite all such assurances many a time their containers are stopped for inspection by the ANF, which results in missing of vessels and exporters have to either face cancellations or airfreight such cargoes at extra cost to meet the buyers’ timeframe.