Gwadar Port operations: PSAI interested in handling captive cargo

While Islamabad has attached a transshipment based geo-strategic significance to Gwadar Port its foreign operator, Port of Singapore Authority International (PSAI), seems more interested in handling the captive cargo than becoming a regional trade hub.
"Considering the geo-economic imperative of the regional changes, the Ports' Master Plan studies consider an alternate to the Persian Gulf Ports to capture the transit trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) as well as the transshipment trade of the region," says a three-year Performance and Activities Report 2004-07 issued by the ministry of ports and shipping during the rule of Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
On the contrary, sources said, the management of Port of Singapore Authority International, the concessionaire operator of Gwadar Port, was following a plan mainly focused on handling the national cargo instead of transhipment business.
They said the inward approach surfaced when Khurram Abbas Country Manager of PSAI told participants of a seminar, held here under the auspices of Pakistan Institute of Maritime Affairs (PIMA) earlier this month, that the Authority would initially focus on national cargo in terms of handling.
Highlighting the salient features of a 30-year Master Plan for Gwadar Port, the PSAI chief had hinted that the Authority was in a competition with the two local ports in Karachi and would go for the transhipment side after undertaking development of the port, said the sources.
They said the PSAI had a commitment with Islamabad on prioritising regional trade at Gwadar Port and that was its (PSA's) international exposure in transhipment work due to which the government had selected it for port operations.
Sources claimed that because of this inward approach the PSAI was happy with the present government's decision to import new consignments of wheat through Gwadar Port. They said the PSAI chief was later badly taken on by other participants of the seminar who reminded the Authority of its past pledges to make the port a regional hub with an aim to capture transit trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and other regional countries.
The speakers, mostly from the ports and shipping field, had strongly criticised the PSAI for not opting transhipment as a short-term possibility. They said some were of the view that the PSAI, in the near future, had no intention to attract transhipment business, which they said was considered to be hallmark of other Asian ports such as Dubai, Colombo, Sallalah, Singapore, and Hong Kong.