Will the trade policy be able to lift sentiments?

EXIM MATTERS

It was a depressing week for importers and exporters because of severe problems at the ground level.

Whether the Foreign Trade Policy announ-cement by Commerce Minister Kamal Nath on August 31 will lift their sentiments is a matter of doubt.

The congestion at the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) has forced closure of the export gates. Over 16,600 boxes are piled up at the container yard, of which 12,300 are import containers.

The NSI-CT has the storage capacity of 11,500 containers. The NSICT has decided to implement a 40 per cent cut in the number of the inland container terminal-bound containers that shipping lines can unload at the terminal.

The Jawaharal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) is trying to cope with the increased load but the pre-Christmas season export shipments are so high that the facilities are inadequate. The JNPT stopped import of heavy melting scrap for two months to cope with the situation.

Apparently, a number of metal scrap import containers are bound for the inland container depot (ICD) at Ludhiana, where the congestion is so high that it is unable to receive cargo from the gateway ports.

The Concor has now decided to run a rake everyday to the Dadri inland container depot to evacuate the import containers at the JNPT quickly .

The snowball effect of congestion is being felt at other inland container depots. Once a Concor rake leaves say the Baroda inland container depot, nobody knows when it will come back. Local Concor officials are trying alternate means of reaching the containers to the JNPT.

Heavy rains in recent weeks have compounded the problems. Mumbai has become the "pot-hole" city of India. Even the approach roads to Nhava Sheva are in a state that it takes hours to get through even 10-15 km stretches from the nearby container freight stations to container yards at the ports.

The local association of heavy vehicle operators is threatening to strike in protest against bad roads leading to the ports. Even the seafarers union is threatening a strike to press its own demands.

The nationwide truckers' strike too contributed to the problem. It paralysed the evacuation of import containers from the ports. The shipping lines have hiked the freight rates, bunker adjustment charges and currency adjustment factor.

They are now threatening to levy congestion surcharge that will make their services more expensive. This is the pre-Christmas shipment season. Exporters are worried that their customers may cancel orders in case of delays.

Another matter of concern is whether the government be able to get its act together, no matter what the commerce minister says. The state governments are also not behaving in a responsible manner.

The Maharashtra government has not exactly boosted the confidence by its pre-election give-away spree.

The poor behaviour of MPs and bandhs in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka have not gone down well with the trade.

The strike by bankers, inflation and rising oil prices have also raised the concerns all round. Scepticism and cynicism rule high on the eve of new foreign trade policy.

tncr@sify.com