Come January the container handling charges at Vallarpadam Terminal is set to reduce substantially, bringing cheer to the Exim trade.
This follows a decision taken at the coordination committee meeting convened by the Cochin Port Trust with stakeholders yesterday.
Senior port officials told Business Line that the high terminal handling charges (THC) was a matter of concern for the trade in the region and it was decided that all terminal related charges at Vallarpadam ICTT would be billed directly to the exporter/importer by the operator DP World.
Hitherto, the shipping companies are making the payment of THC to DP World and thereafter billing the importer/exporter together with add-on charges relating to their own services.
This had resulted in incidence of service tax being incurred twice. There were disputes related to charges billed by some steamer agents under various heads.
The present attempt with the active co-operation of steamer agents association is expected to substantially reduce the total transaction cost at the Vallarpadam ICTT, the officials said. Consequently all shipping line related service charges would be billed directly to the exporter/Importer by the lines, they added.
The terminal operator and shipping lines would jointly discuss the modalities to be adopted for the implementation of this billing system and would be introduced in full scale from January 1, 2015, the officials added.
It was also decided at the stakeholders meeting to immediately discontinue the container service pool under Customs House Agents Association which would further bring down the container transaction cost.
The Labour Trustees in the Port Trust Board, who had been part of the sub-committee created to address the issue of high cost, assured the Exim trade of unstinted cooperation from the labour side.
It may be recalled that Coimbatore exporters utilising the Vallarpadam terminal facility had raised the high handling charges issue before the port authorities during the trade meet convened in September at Coimbatore. The Sales Tax authorities assured the introduction of a green channel facility at Walayar, to give quicker and easier access for Exim containers from Coimbatore.
CONCOR officials during the meeting guaranteed more services including longer free storage period and better facility to move containers from Coimbatore to Vallarpadam through their Irugur ICD.