May 21, 2020
Due to continued frustration expressed by the Afghan traders community, the Afghan consulate general in Karachi on behalf of the Afghan Ministry wrote to Pakistani authorities on May 20 to address several issues, inter alia the prolonged stranding of the parked containers, faced by Afghan traders at Karachi Port. These issues range from shortage of tracking devices, increasing demurrages and detention charges, lag in the scanning and examination of Afghan transit cargo due to only three scanners available at Karachi Port, the slow movement of Afghan cargo at Chaman/Torkham crossing points and so on.
While delineating all the issues faced by the Afghan traders, the Afghan Consulate General stated that Pakistan Customs has licensed only one Tracker Company to provide tracking service for Afghan transit trade. As a result, due to shortage of Tracking Devices, the transit cargo is stopped or being slowed in Karachi for more than 15 days. The authorized Tracking company has hardly been able to supply 100 trackers per day which may be divided into 4 ports where each port can get 25 tracker devices per day and accommodate the 5500 Afghan transit in a row. If enough tracking devices will not be arranged at this point, the cargo may take months to be transited into Afghanistan, costing Afghan traders huge bills in the shape of container rent and port demurrages, which is another major concern being faced by the Afghan traders. The letter thus urged that another suitable tracker company, if needed, also be made an agreement with to provide tracking service.
For the relief of the business community, the letter further called on relevant authorities not to charge containers any detention fee from 25th March until 30th of April. Furthermore, as the Karachi Ports & Customs authorities subject all the Afghan transit cargo to 100% of scanning and examination, with only three scanners available at Karachi Port, the maximum scanning capacity is 150 containers per day. With this, the scanning of Afghan transit cargo is delayed for 3-5 days, leading to an increase in demurrage and container detention charges with each passing day. The letter thus requested that the selection for examination of inspection should not be more than 1 minute and not more than 5% of the total Afghan shipments.
The letter further stated that as Pakistani authorities had been preferring Pakistan exports over Afghan transit trade, this had contributed to the slow movement of Afghan transit at the Chaman and Torkham crossing points. The letter pointed out that due to this reason, many Afghan traders were now contemplating using Chahbahar route for their imports into Afghanistan, though stressing that Pakistan had been the preferred option for Afghan traders due to the long history of being trade partners. The full letter can be viewed here.
