Importers Urged to Remove Containers from Port

When a port is congested, the only way to properly manage the situation is to have co-operation from all parties concerned – importers, shipping lines and the Port Authority.
To this end, President of the Port Authority of Jamaica, Noel Hylton has issued an appeal for importers to assist the Authority in clearing the congestion at the port by removing their containers.
He was speaking at a JIS ‘Think Tank’ yesterday (December 16), when he sought to clarify the true definition and function of the Kingston port.
“No port in the world wants to store any cargo. A port is a transit point. The ships bring the cargo, the port accepts the cargo and as such, is an extension of the ship, and the cargo is accepted for delivery. Our position would be ideal if the customer comes to clear the cargo on the same day that it arrives here,”Mr. Hylton pointed out.
The procedure for clearing containers was fairly straightforward, he said, as every ship that comes to Jamaica has an agent in the island who sends a notice to the consignee advising him or her that their cargo has arrived.
The notice also includes the name of the ship and berth of discharge. However, the Port Authority has been grappling with a situation where business people often leave their merchandise on the port longer than is necessary.
“People have containers sitting on the port, some for 40 days, some for 29 days and so on. And what has happened is that, I can only assume, they do not have space at their factory to take the containers, and because our storage rate is very cheap, they leave them there,” Mr. Hylton said.