KARACHI: Government wants foreign developers to upgrade berthing facilities in Gwadar port after it resumed trade in Afghanistan with a port in connection with a Chinese-sponsored economic project.
The Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) ran overseas tenders to expand the berthing facilities, supply and installation of floating jetty and cranes in the harbor. Bids came from factories for supplying and installing safety equipment to navigate.
Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, housing the harbor, is an integral part of the Chinese belt-and-road initiative and is considering infrastructure development in 70 countries. Under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, the port because its proximity to the Chinese province will be used as a trading post between Asia and other parts of the world.
The port of Gwadar can hold a mass of 50,000 tons of cargo at an average depth of 12.5 meters. The harbor consists of three multi-purpose berths and each is 200 meters long.
"Given the need for rapid growth in the demand for port capacity, the authority continues to increase the capacity of Gwadar port," the official document said.
Gwadar Harbor was built at a cost of about $ 600 million. An additional three berth will be built in the next two years, according to the document.
Traffic in Gwadar port is expected to increase after the government allowed the importation of goods, both containerized and bulk, to Afghanistan.
The government also simplified the regulatory framework for the transport trade to increase its scope in the world's land-locked Central Asian states. Pakistan and Afghanistan have come to understand the wide range of Afghan exports to Pakistan and India as well as the use of Afghanistan territory for Pakistan’s export in central Asian countries.
Currently, Pakistan has two major ports operating in the deep sea: Karachi Port and Port Qasim. Their capacity expansion plans are not in line with the expected growth in demand, which has led to the need for a third port to close the gap. The port of Gwadar has been operational since March 2018 and was opened to trade in transport in Afghanistan in October last year. The first ship carrying Afghan containers docked at the port on January 14 this year.
Transshipment work will begin as some businesses gain momentum in free zones. Nine factories have already been built in the Gwadar free zone. Gwadar port in the deep sea is the beginning of CPEC. It is also considered the cheapest way to import and export to China and other Central Asian countries. The port provides a short and inexpensive route to transport oil and gas from the Middle East and minerals from Africa to these destinations.
