Ahmed Khan Malik

Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT) has achieved a milestone of handling 15 million containers over the last 25 years.  KICT is a member of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) Group, a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL), the world’s leading port investor, developer and operator. Today, KICT stands as a premier port in Pakistan and continues to develop, according to Alvin Chow, chief executive officer of Hutchison Ports KICT. KICT has also created 10,000 jobs directly and indirectly and contributed billions of rupees in the national exchequer in the last 25 years.  KICT is designed to provide state-of-the-art marine container handling facilities to multiple container carriers at the Karachi Port. The three-berth wharf of the terminal is spread over an area of 600 square meters, where up to three ships can be berthed at a time. The terminal has a storage capacity of 8,567 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and is designed to handle an annual throughput of 300,000 TEUs in the first phase of the project, and 450,000 TEUs in the second phase. KICT, Pakistan's leading container terminal operator, has been in operation since 1998. It is located within the Port of Karachi, a natural deepwater harbour located west of the Indus Delta on the Arabian Sea.

The facility has five berths geared with modern container-handling equipment. The HPH network of port operations comprises 319 berths in 52 ports, spanning 26 countries throughout the world. Over the years, HPH has expanded internationally into other logistics and transportation-related ventures. These include cruise ship terminals, airport and hotel operations, distribution centres, rail services, and ship repair facilities. In 2013, the HPH port network handled a combined throughput of 78.3 million TEUs worldwide. HPH is a fully certified and validated member of Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), at a global level, with a single membership covering all HPH business units. The container terminals in Pakistan emerged in the late 90s and KICT was a pioneer as the Karachi Port Trust was handling the cargo and berths earlier. As a government-owned entity, the working of KPT was outsourced to private container terminals, which brought the innovation and speedy handling of cargo at the ports of the country.  As the external trade warrants speedy and smooth handling of cargo, the container terminals at the country’s ports are playing a critical role in this regard.

Credit: INP-WealthPk