August 31, 2004 COUNTRY: Panama PORT: Panama Canal Tariff Increase in Panama Canal --------------- Responding to request from the Camara Maritima, on Friday 20 Aug, the Canal Administrator gave a presentation to members of this organization, to explain the proposal recently publicized to charge for container deck capacity, under what they consider to be a more fair, transparent and commercially viable system. For the benefit of our English speaking members we provide hereunder the conclusions we were able to gather from this presentation. ACP will be visiting maritime groups, such as the International Chamber of Shipping, within the next two months to discuss their plans and obtain feedback from the industry. In October or November, ACP expect to put forward a formal proposal, which may include an indication of an implementation date, and will set dates for Public Hearings and receipt of formal comments on the proposal. Once the formal proposal is out the Canal will only accept written comments until the date of the Public hearings, when the industry is welcome to take the podium and argue for or against the proposal. The proposal, if adopted as is, can increase transit costs of full-container vessels up to 100 percent. It will also affect, to a lesser degree, transit costs of any vessels that have an on-deck container carriage capacity. A 'reefer' vessel with deck capacity for example will see transit costs increase as well. The ACP indicated that the increased revenue, which will be extremely large, is to be used to continue to modernize and upgrade the canal. There was no specific link mentioned to the ongoing studies and discussions concerning the possible building of new locks. The intention is to charge based on the nominal deck capacity as per the Container securing manual, independent of actual number of containers being carried at a given time. The criteria is that the customer can use the capacity in any way he or she wants. The canal actually allows for container vessels to transit to IMO visibility requirements. Heavy cargoes, repositioning of empty containers, etc which affect the revenue earning ratios are all factors that have to do with the actual trades and natural imbalances. The Canal's position is that these factors have nothing to do with with the way they charge, which is based on a measurable parameter i.e. capacity. Source: Indonesian Shipping Gazette
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