Ports to face congestion on slowdown in cargo clearance at Pak-Afghan border

KARACHI: The country’s main ports are likely to experience cargo congestions as delay in clearance of consignments at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has already started piling up cargoes, slowing down unloading at the docks, officials said on Wednesday.

“The slowdown may result in piling up of cargoes at the ports in Karachi,” said a customs official.

Clearance of cargoes under the Afghan transit trade is currently moving at a snail pace as tension at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border escalates after a spate of terror attacks in the south Asian nation.  

Customs clearing agents said 40 percent of total import clearance at the ports is related to the Afghan transit trade. They said more shipment of Afghan transit is in pipeline and it would cause further congestion of containers at various terminals in Karachi.  They said the stuck containers would also lead to demmurarge, detention and port charges.

Shams Burney, chairman of All Pakistan Customs Bonded Carrier Association said the slowdown policy would result in congestion “but national security should not be compromised.”  “Customs authorities should have alternate arrangements in order to avoid port congestion.”

“Vast area is available with the South Asia Pakistan Terminals Limited where containers at different terminals could be relocated,” Burney said.

Sources said a multitude of cargoes have already been piled up at the Torkham border from where around 60 percent of the cargoes under the Afghan transit trade are transported into Afghanistan.

In the middle of this month, Pakistan sealed its Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan for an indefinite period in the wake of a barbaric bombing at a shrine in the country, which killed at least 80 people.

Customs officials said it is difficult for them to facilitate scanning of a long queue of containers stuck at the border-crossing.  

Around 50,000 commercial containers were transported into Afghanistan from Pakistan in the fiscal year of 2014/15. Value of transit trade amounted to Rs255 billion.