With the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan, foreign flag container ships connecting ports located in both the countries may evaluate structural changes to their services in the region, which could include either temporarily skipping the route or stoppage of the services.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade, on May 2, announced prohibition on import or transit of all goods originating in or exported from Pakistan. This means, no container can be loaded for Pakistan or unloaded if it is from that country. A similar ban was issued by Pakistan too.
A government official said that there is no restriction on foreign flag ships and these ships in liner trade are not affected.
But, officials in the shipping lines are keeping all options open.
Some top global shipping lines, including Denmark’s Maersk, France’s CMA-CGM, Germany’s Hapag Lloyd and Singapore’s ONE, operate liner container service connecting ports in India’s west coast and Pakistan. However, data around the volume of containers handled on board the liner services could not be ascertained.
monitoring situation
Maersk in a statement said it was closely monitoring the developing situation regarding trade restrictions and marine traffic between India and Pakistan. “As a global integrated logistics company with operations in a global network that connects both countries, we are taking immediate steps to address this situation,” the company said.
Maersk does not facilitate the movement of cargo between India and Pakistan that originates from either country and is destined for the other country. However, in light of the developing restrictions, Maersk is actively realigning cargo movement to ensure full compliance with all governmental directives while minimising disruption to our customers’ supply chains.
“Going forward, we will evaluate potential structural changes to our ocean network should these restrictions remain in place for an extended period,” the statement said.
An official of another shipping line said, “We are evaluating the impact on the bans by both the countries.”
Anil Devli, CEO, Indian National Shipowners Association, says that services that touch ports in India and then go on to ports in Pakistan are going to get impacted. For example, CMA, MSC,ONE, all have services, which either go to Pakistan after calling Indian ports or come back from Pakistan into an Indian port. “It does not matter what is now prohibited is even transit of boxes meant for Pakistan or originating from Pakistan. It does not matter what flag the vessels are. The issue is that they should not be carrying Pakistani cargo either coming in or going out,” he said.
Impacted services
Danish shipping major, Maersk’s Mawingu Express offers a round trip from Jawaharlal Nehru port touching Mundra, Port Qasim and Pipavav. It also operates the F13 service between the Far East and the Middle East touching Jawaharlal Nehru, Pipavav, Karachi and Mundra ports.
The French shipping line, CMA-CGM since January operates a weekly dedicated westbound service between Khalifa Port (Abu Dhabi) and Southampton covering Karachi and Nhava Sheva.
Singapore-based, ONE has a round trip from Shanghai that includes Nhava Sheva, Karachi and Mundra. Germany’s Hapag Lloyd has a service from and to Port Qasim in Pakistan touching Nhava Sheva and Mundra. MSC of Switzerland’s Pearl-Shikra service from Busan touches Mundra, Nhava Sheva and Karachi, and to Chinese ports.
