The accumulated import and export cargo handling at Karachi Port Trust (KPT) during the just concluded financial year 2015-16 closed at 50.05 million tons compared to 43.42 million tons of last year. It is an outstanding performance that the KPT has shown to record 15.25 percent more cargo handling during 2015-16, said a statement of KPT on Monday.
The breakup shows that KPT handled 16.59 percent more to record 34.59 million tons accumulated imports and exports of dry cargo during the ending financial year 2015-16 whereas it remained at 29.67 million tons in the financial year 2014-15.
Similarly, KPT also handled 12.37 percent more to record 15.45 million tons accumulated imports and exports liquid bulk cargo whereas that remained at 13.75 million tons.
Further breakup imports and exports showed that KPT handled 40.26 million tons of import cargo and 9.79 million tons of export cargo during the financial year ending 2015-16.
In the corresponding financial year 2014-15, these remained at 33 million tons and 10.42 million tons respectively. The cargo import handling has recorded a hefty gain of 22 percent at the close of ending financial year. Both the dry cargo imports and liquid cargo imports have registered gains of 25.58 percent and 15.84 percent respectively to close during the financial year ending at 26.19 million tons and 14.07 million tons.
Previously, these remained during the corresponding financial year 2014-15 at 20.86 million tons and 12.14 million tons respectively. The ending financial year 2015-16 has also remained good for container handling at Karachi Port. The accumulated imports and exports container handling at KPT during the ending financial year closed at 1.96 million TEUs (Twenty Equivalent Units) whereas the same remained last year 13.46 percent less at 1.72 million TEUs. The breakup showed that KPT handled 1.01 million TEUs of imports containers and 0.95 million TEUs of exports containers during the ending financial year 2015-16; whereas these remained during the previous financial year at 0.896 million TEUs and 0.828 million TEUs respectively. Hence, the imports container handling has recorded a gain of 12.22 percent and the exports container handling recorded a gain of 14.81% in comparison from the handling taken place the previous financial year 2014-15.
The ship handling, another aspect of Karachi Port Operations, also showed that during the ending financial year 1,893 ships had been handled as compared to 1,732 ships in preceding year. The breakup showed that KPT handled 738 container ships, 222 bulk cargo ships, 374 general cargo ships and 559 oil tankers during the ending financial year. The same remained at 790 last year container ships, 193 bulk cargo ships, 255 general cargo ships and 494 oil tankers respectively.