KARACHI – Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) has written an official letter to Bangladesh Shipping Corporation to revive the shipping protocol signed between both countries around 33 years ago in order to boost trade volume. Chairman PNSC Brigadier (r) Rashid Siddiqi while speaking to Pakistan Today said this letter was written in the wake of expanding business links between both countries while the Shipping Protocol has been disrupted since 1997.
However, PNSC and Kuwait Petroleum have agreed upon an agreement of one year under which PNSC vessels would be used to transport fuel oil to the different Islands, he informed. He also indicated that, recently, it has won five tenders for oil supply in Bangladesh, and four of the tenders which were lost due politicising have also been recovered by PNSC as the winner of those tenders, a Canadian man of Bangladeshi origin, has signed an agreement with PNSC for his operations.
PNSC has also apparently been pressing Pakistan State Oil (PSO) to use their vessels for fuel import, but of no avail and the oil company has now signed a one year agreement with Kuwait Petroleum. Rashid was however hopeful that PSO would eventually come around. To a query, he responded by saying that PNSC has been involved in oil trading with Bangladesh but due to the lack of interest on their part in trading with Pakistan.
He went on to say that he was confident that the initiative to revive the shipping protocol would bear positive results. It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan and Bangladesh had signed a shipping protocol in 1978, under which the route from Chittagong to Karachi was formally established. Pan Islamic Shipping Lines was the first shipping line to begin operations under the protocol while Bangladesh Shipping Corporation also send out its ships to Pakistan, while around 150,000 tonnes of jute was imported a year from Bangladesh.
The use of this channel lasted till 1997, when the Pan Islamic Shipping Lines ceased its operations. Since then, trading between the two countries has ceased and rendered the shipping protocol ineffective. The protocol was approved by the government at the time and it was meant exclusively for both countries with no third flag country was allowed. Pakistani marble chips, cotton amongst other commodities were exported to Bangladesh through this route.
At least two vessels of 10,000 tonnes capacity sailed on the route in a month, but with the closure of Pan Islamic Shipping Lines in 1997 the route was also closed. PNSC was to have made a concerted effort to revive the protocol, but more than 13 years have passed and the protocol continues to neglected, maritime experts believe, adding that the national shipping corporation could have used this route under this protocol to generate trade volume between both the countries as the protocol is valid for lifetime period.
It is pertinent to mention that Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Mohammad Mijarul Quayes in October during his visit to Pakistan agreed to reopen this trade line, as it would be a trade route meant exclusively for both countries.
