The Hindu Business Line : Shreyas Shipping to upgrade services to Pakistan

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Kolkata Feb.8 Shreyas Shipping proposes to upgrade its services to Pakistan by introducing a higher capacity vessel. It will also reorganise its other service that currently links west coast with east coast via Colombo. The essence of the reorganisation will be to skip Colombo and make it a pure coastal service.

The decision to upgrade the service to Pakistan, according to a spokesman for Shreyas, has been taken in view of the bullish trend of the trade, which has been, by and large, one-way traffic till now. The service to Pakistan was launched about eight months ago with one vessel of the effective capacity of 420 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) with the frequency of one sailing every 10 days. The cargo inducement at that time was barely 100 TEUs per sailing.

The situation started changing with signing of the revised bilateral shipping protocol between India and Pakistan last month. The new protocol allows ships of the two countries to lift third country cargo from each other's ports and foreign ships to participate in sea-borne trade between the two.

Shreyas Shipping now offers one sailing every week with two vessels of the effective capacity of 420 TEUs each, as the volume of traffic, comprising mainly cotton, buffalo meat and machinery, on the India-Pakistan leg now is about 250 to 300 TEUs each sailing. The port rotation is: JNPT-Kandla-Karachi-Mundra-Kandla-JNPT. From Karachi, the ships load third country traffic, though of limited quantities, for transhipment at Mundra where mainline vessels call.

Third vessel planned

The shipping line plans to launch a third vessel of the effective capacity of more than 500 TEUs on the route. This is because the current trend suggests an upward swing not only in Pakistan's trade with India but also with other countries. The forthcoming visit of the Indian tea delegation to Pakistan too will boost tea exports from India to Pakistan, it is felt.

Shreyas Shipping's existing Kandla-Kochi-Tuticorin-Colombo-JNPT-Kandla service is due for restructuring in the sense that Colombo will be dropped to make it a pure coastal service. Also, two higher capacity vessels of the average capacity of 950 TEUs each will be launched to replace the current two vessels, one of 600-TEUs and the other of 900-TEUs. "We'll shortly make an announcement in this regard," the spokesman said.