KARACHI, July 1: The Karachi Port handled a record volume of over 32 million tons of cargo during out-going fiscal 2005-06, thereby registering a growth of over 13 per cent over the previous year. The higher volume of external trade, particularly of imports, had been instrumental in giving a fillip to the performance of the premier port of the country.

Briefing the newsman at the KPT head-office here on Saturday, General Manager Operation (GMO) Rear Admiral Agha Danish said that the high economic growth resulted in all-around brisk activity at the port where containerised cargo touched a record level of 1,144,150 million TEUs, resulting in a growth of more than 25 per cent.

Similarly, he said that dry cargo handling rose by 32.35 per cent at 21.60 million tons as against 16.32 million tons recorded last year. The GMO said that this was mainly owing to the growing demand of fertiliser, coal, cement and sugar. However, he admitted that the handling of liquid cargo remained low during the period under review at 10.66 million tons compared to 12.29 million tons last year because of incomplete connectivity of the White Oil Pipeline. He hoped that the oil pipeline would soon be completed as it has reached Korangi industrial area.

Agha Danish said that since 96 per cent of country's trade was by sea, therefore, there was ever-rising need to enhance cargo handling at the ports and make them efficient and user friendly. He said that Karachi Port handled over 70 per cent of total trade volume of the country and had embarked upon creating more capacity by deepening its berths and approach channel to enable large size vessels to call at the port.

Due to the increase in demand for imported vehicles the Karachi Port handled a phenomenal number of 57,352 vehicles last year (2005-06) against 18,699 handled in 2004-05. Coal imports handled in 2004-05 were 1,402,143 tons, whereas in 2005-06, 1,976,515 tons of coal was handled showing a remarkable increase of 41 per cent.

He regretted that some environmental pollution problems were being faced because of handling of coal and its storage in the port area but the KPT has taken all possible measures to reduce the impact by enforcing preventive steps at off-loading, transportation and dumping stages and it has produced some good results.

The port also handled around 2.158 million packages (70,000 tons) of earthquake relief goods, apart from 445 TEUs, free of charge from 72 ships. Afghan cargo also saw an increase of 64.48 per cent as the port handled 301,000 tons of transit cargo belonging to Afghanistan.

The DGO Karachi Port said that from July 1, 2006 the port had further reduced its wet charges, which was second time in three years. This reduction, he said, would further facilitate and make container handling more cost effective.

In order to develop the port into a more modern, efficient and user-friendly transhipment hub of the region all the berths are going to be deepened to accommodate large size vessels. In first stage, he said, berth 14 to 17 will be deepened and new equipment, including backhoe dredger --Ali-- has been acquired from Holland and another dredger will be inducted next year.

Having a futuristic outlook, the KPT is also going to develop a deep draft container terminal with a draft of 18 metres and will setup cargo village in the Western backwaters. The deep draft container terminal will have ten berths, which could accommodate mother ships presently on drawing board and it would be world's first terminal with 18 metre draft.

Responding to a question, he said that the KPT had no problem with regard to the on-going power crisis as it had its own backup power generation system.