KARACHI: The South Asia Pakistan Terminal (SAPT), in the second phase of development, plans to invest $240 million to expand existing facilities with two more berths of 700 metres in length and state of the art equipments, official sources said on Wednesday.

SAPT Chief Executive Officer Capt S. Rashid Jamil told Dawn that there had been a drop of seven per cent in handling of Twenty Feet Equivalent Units (TEUs) in all four terminals of the country up to October, but Hutchison Ports Pakistan still went ahead with expansion plan.

The SAPT operates biggest deep sea port of the country since 2016, with two berths having length of 800 metres.

Hutchison Ports Pakistan invested $600m on the first phase of SAPT’s development with initial investment of $50m along with $100m in two equal installments given to Karachi Port Trust in a shape of advance rent, the official added.

Jamil went on to explain that most of the ships carry 40pc containers loaded with export cargo and 60pc empty containers due to steep fall in external trade.

He said the new equipments will be fully automatic particularly the Real Time Gross Settlement Systems which will be run by electric power and will be remote controlled.

Similarly, he said the five ship-to-ship transfer canes will be without cabin and their function will be controlled from tower by remote control.

The port will also be installing its own reverse osmosis plant with a capacity of 700,000 gallons per day the civil work and equipment costs are equally divided by $120m each, he added.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019