The cargo handling activities at the Karachi Port broke all previous records during the just-concluded Fiscal Year 2014-15. In FY15, the port registered a record handling of 43.42 million tons cargo and 1.72 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), said a KPT statement on Thursday.
In FY14, the handling of cargo was recorded at 41.35 million tons and that of TEUs stood at 1.59 million, showing a hefty gain of 8.4 percent.
The ship traffic also has gained momentum as more ships have called at the port. The ship movement and handling remained at 1,732 ships, whereas last year, it remained at 1,674 ships, hence an increase of 3.46% as compared to the last year.
The break-up shows that the port handled 29.67 million tons of total dry cargo imports and exports and 13.75 million tons of liquid bulk cargo imports and exports during the ending financial year 2014-15, whereas last year, these remained at 28.24 million tons and 13.11 million tons respectively.
Similarly, the break-up of ship movement and handling shows that the port handled 790 container ships, 193 bulk cargo ships, 255 general cargo ships and 494 oil tankers this year. In year 2013-14, these remained at 817 container ships, 172 bulk cargo ships, 229 general cargo ships and 456 oil tankers respectively.
As bigger size container ships called at Karachi Port during FY15 due to the dredging activities of the port which resulted in increasing the draft at the two private terminals KICT and PICT to 13 meters, hence the handling of more containers is promising as fewer and larger size ships have carried more containers.