Lufthansa Cargo has launched its service to Bangladesh as part of a plan to expand its network in Asia. The service started last week with stopovers in India. A weekly MD-11 freighter connected Frankfurt with Dhaka as an outbound service from the German city, with a stopover in Mumbai, and with the inbound service making a brief stop in Delhi.
Piracy cloud darkens in 2011
The first quarter of 2011 witnessed the worst incidents of piracy, according to International Maritime Bureau. During the period, there were 142 attacks worldwide of which 97 were recorded off the coast of Somalia — against 35 attacks recorded during the same period of last year. Worldwide, IMB points out, pirates murdered seven crew and injured 34. Eighteen vessels were hijacked and 344 crew members taken hostage. Forty-five vessels were boarded and 45 were fired at. As on March 31, 2011, as IMB figures showed, Somali pirates were holding captive 596 crew members and 28 ships. Since January 2010, $85 million has been paid to pirates as ransom. In the case of an Indian vessel, the pirates received the ransom money but reneged on a deal to free all the crew.
IMB, therefore, has called for action against pirate mother ships. Meanwhile, Somalia's foreign minister has hit out at the anti-piracy policy, saying international efforts to combat Somali piracy are flawed because they focus on the symptoms rather than the causes. Mr Mohamed Abdullahi Omaar, Somali foreign minister, has been quoted in
This is not productive, effective, practical or morally defensible.” He was addressing an anti-piracy conference in Dubai recently.
Port sector prepares for more traffic
By 2019-20, the traffic at major ports is likely to grow to 1,214.82 million tonnes (mt) from 561.09 mt and to 1,269.59 mt from 288.80 mt at non-major ports. Thus, the traffic in the country's port sector is estimated to grow to 2,484.41 mt by 2019-20 from 849.89 mt at CAGR of 11.32 per cent, according to Shipping Ministry sources. If the various capacity augmentation plans under implementation are any indication, by 2020 the capacity at 13 major ports will increase to 1,459.53 mt from 616.73 mt and to 1660.02 mt from 346.31 mt at non-major ports. In next few years, the growth of the non-major ports, in terms of volume of traffic and additional capacity, will be higher than that of major ports.
The port sector, it is indicated, is aiming at more than 25 per cent surplus capacity to provide adequate berthing facilities for ships on arrival, thus eliminating pre-berthing delays.
The proposed investment in the port sector in the next 10 years is estimated to be Rs 2.77 lakh crore — Rs 1.09 lakh crore in major ports and Rs 1.68 lakh crore in non-major ports.