The Development of Mini Ports : For the Modernization of the Blue Economy and Maritime Industry, the main challenge for us is the effective investment in the infrastructure of our Ports, unfortunately this area has not been addressed in the past. Focusing on Modernizing Port Infrastructure, Streamlining Custom’s Process, Revitalizing the Maritime Economy is not just but essential for the country’s economic resurgence, said Ateeq Ur Rehman (economic & financial analyst).
However, in the recent past, significant work has been done on the improvement of our Ports, but it requires more collaboration from multilateral and bilateral investors as Foreign Direct Investments. We need to fund for improvement of our General Harbor Facilities like dragging / berths / storage for maintaining and expanding the Port Capacities, also ensuring that they can accommodate Large Vessels / Mother Vessels and Big Cargo Volumes of Containers and Break bulk.
The congestion at our Ports has been a long standing issue, leading to delays and increased operational cost, therefore Pakistan needs more Small Ports or “Mini Ports” to enhance its Maritime Trade and relieve congestion at Major Ports. A network of “Mini Ports” can be linked to the main port to form a national grid, facilitating efficient transportation and logistics. These smaller ports are crucial for supporting local economies, facilitating trade with neighboring regions, land locked countries and diversifying the countries shipping routes. By developing “Mini Ports” we can boost local economies by creating jobs, and supporting the trade (import / export) said ateeq.
In future developing “Mini Ports” locally, requires investment in infrastructure, such as berthing facilities, storage and access roads. Securing Funding and Government support is essential for the development of these “Mini Ports”.
Further involvement of Private sector as FDI or Local investment for developing “Mini Ports”, New Terminals, Berths, Storage, etc is Business Rewarding and can contribute to addressing capacity constraints and improving operational efficiency, too.
He added that for building resilient business for a sustainable future, we in a wider aspect of value added supply chain solutions and logistic support services not only need the enormous growth of Special Economic Zones, Export Processing Zones, New Industrial Zones, Processing Units, etc but also the “Mini Ports”.
