31st August 2014, the Deadline for Receiving Container and General Cargo Vessels at Sultan Qaboos Port

Source : Oman News Agency ( website)

http://www.omannews.gov.om/ona/english/newsMore.jsp

31st August 2014, the Deadline for Receiving Container and General Cargo Vessels at Sultan Qaboos Port

Muscat, Oct 6 (ONA)— Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Futaisi, Minister of Transport and Communications said that the deadline for receiving the container, cargo, vehicle carriers and project materials vessels at Sultan Qaboos Port will be August 31st 2014. The last four months of 2014 will be then allocated for clearing goods at the port warehouses and yards. He pointed out that marine works and other facilities to receive tourist vessels, boats, passenger ferries and military visiting vessels at Sultan Qaboos Port will continue. The port will also continue handing cereal vessels having transactions with Oman Flour Mills Company and will temporary continue to receive liquid tar, sheep, fishing, food oil and cement vessels till further notice. The Minister of Transport and Communications urged all traders, manufacturers and companies operating in shipping, import, export, custom clearance, transport, agencies, insurance companies, warehousing and distribution to abide by the deadline for receiving commercial vessels at the port. He urged them to clear all the goods stored in the yards and warhorses no later than December 31st 2014. This change comes in response to the royal directives of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said to divert Sultan Qaboos Port into a tourist port and transfer all commercial activities to Sohar Industrial Port. It also comes within the Sultanate’s strategy to develop the port and marine transportation sector. It is worth mentioning that Sultan Qaboos Port will be a tourist port with effect from January 1st 2015 to become the first port in the Sultanate to provide tourism uses. —-Ends/MS/FS

Aitken Spence in first-ever Public-Private partnership by a Sri Lankan company oversea
(Business Times, as relayed by Aitken Spence)

Aitken Spence recently entered into a public-private partnership with the Fiji Ports Corporation to oversee the repair and operation of Suva and Lautoka ports, the largest in Fiji; marking the first-ever public-private partnership by a Sri Lankan companY recorded to-date.
Fiji media reported that the partnership is worth an estimated US$10.5 million. Aitken Spence PLC will own 51 per cent of the stake in Fiji Ports Terminal Ltd, the joint venture company, taking control of the business in two ports for a period of 15 years.

The Prime Minister and Minister for Finance of Fiji, Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, in his speech at the occasion said, “When we invited expressions of interest in a Public Private Partnership to invest in and manage Ports Terminal Limited in December, Aitken Spence came to us with a comprehensive blueprint to boost the efficiency and productivity of our port movements. We share the same vision to make these container terminals world class, to radically overturn the inefficiencies of the past and apply best practice to eventually establish them as the leading ports and maritime logistic centres in the Pacific”.

“Aitken Spence has a reputation for certain things my Government values most – innovation, imagination, thinking outside the box. We see it as the ideal partner to improve the overall performance of our two main ports and look forward to implementing our joint vision to transform the operations in Suva and Lautoka,” he further added.

The Fiji Sun quoted Aitken Spence Maritime Chairman Dr. Parakrama Dissanayake speaking to reporters at the official ceremony as saying, “I’m confident the public-private partnership will result in the establishment of Fiji as the gateway to the South Pacific. We will bring in the global best practices in human resources and the processes in the system and also in the sphere of having the right machinery to having the right level of productivity”.

Fiji Times had earlier reported that the poor management and lack of performance at the Suva and Lautoka ports are the main reasons behind the government’s decision to hand over the management of the ports to Aitken Spence.