Port Costs: PMAWCA Advocates A Cut In Customs Duties

Secretary-General, Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA); Mr Michael Luguje, has said that reducing customs duties and an effective Single Window platform will reduce port costs to the barest minimum.
Luguje stated this on Friday in Abuja at a two-day Sub-Regional Workshop on Transport Costs and Connectivity of African Countries; and Sensitisation Seminar on Container Weighing.
He said that there was need to have a port community system which would serve as a framework for stakeholders to dialogue to improve quality of service and reduce costs of doing business.
Luguge said that regulation of port costs was a collective responsibility of both government and private sector.
The secretary-general said that the total port costs on a particular cargo including customs duties and taxes accounted for over 70 per cent of the value of cargo
“Terminal operators account for the largest share of over 65 per cent of the total port costs.
“Therefore, any government’s effort to reduce the burden of port costs on the shipper should involve the terminal operators,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quotes Luguje as saying.
He said that port costs was the monetary measure of what port users paid to the ports authority, terminal operators and other ancillary service providers for using facilities and services of a port.
Luguje said that regulating the ports, the shipping sector and making special provisions in concession contracts, would support funding of port infrastructure development.
He said that the importance of port operation could not be over-emphasised, adding that ports served as international gateways for a nation’s import and export trades.
Luguje said that it was estimated that 90 per cent by volume and 80 per cent by value of world’s international trade in merchandise were routed through the ports.
The secretary general, however, urged governments to look into port costs which had been affecting connectivity within the sub-region.
According to him, ports remain veritable engines of economic growth.