While cargo handling at Karachi port grew by five percent, the number of vessels calling at the country's largest seaport showed a southward trend during first half of the current fiscal year. However, the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) on Thursday dubbed the July-December FY15 as a "good" period for the port.
The period under review, the port operator said, saw the handling of dry cargo grow by 4.79 percent to 14.98 million tonnes compared to 14.29 million tonnes of last year's corresponding period.
The liquid bulk cargo increased by 4.6 percent to 6.67 million tonnes as against 6.37 million tonnes of last year.
Total cargo handled at Karachi port surged by 4.7 percent to 21.65 million tonnes compared to 20.67 million tonnes of FY14. The handling of containerised cargo also remained upward with cumulative handling of Twentyfoot-Equivalent Units (TEUs) standing at 0.833 million compared to last year's 0.786 million, depicting 6.05 percent growth.
A break-up shows that the port handled 0.429 million imported TEUs and 0.404 million exported ones. In FY14, this number was recorded at 0.405 million and 0.381 million TEUs respectively, the port operator recalled.
The container ships' handling at Karachi port this year was recorded at 385 vessels, 106 bulk, 114 general cargo ships and 237 oil tankers.
During the corresponding period last year, these were 418 container ships, 99 bulk cargo ships, 107 general cargo ships and 204 oil tankers.
"Although handling of less container vessels has taken place but KPT has handled more container freight this year as compared to the corresponding period last year," said the KPT.
It showed that larger size container ships were calling at Karachi Port with more cargo on-board, it said.
Comments
Comments are closed.