Come January, a new law reducing the period in which containers can be stored at Port Klang for free from five days to three will be enforced
PORT Klang Authority (PKA) will organise a trial run for the soon-to-be-implemented three-day free storage period for containers at Port Klang from November 1, with the cooperation of several members of the Selangor Freight Forwarders & Logistics Association.
“We are having the trial run to ensure that there are no hiccups in January when we fully implement the ruling … it also gives us two months to refine it to make sure that it benefits the whole port community once it is implemented,” PKA general manager and chief executive officer Lim Thean Shiang said in Port Klang last week.
Come January, a new law reducing the period in which containers can be stored at Port Klang for free from five days to three will be enforced.
In July this year, PKA had set up a committee, which comprises representation from all trade associations, to come up with a standard operating procedure (SOP), detailing the role each party plays in the total logistics chain and the cut-off time for export and import shipments.
Lim said almost 100 per cent of the SOP of each logistics provider has been finalised to date.
The committee has also come up with three areas of improvement that need to be focused on.
Firstly, the need for an amendment to clause 65(3) of the Port Klang Authority Bylaws to exempt containers which are detained by Other Governments Agencies, and a change in calculation of free storage period from days to hours.
The committee also suggested that the advance notification requirement to hauliers be reduced from 48 hours to 24.
PKA will consult with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry Development on the matter of the advance notification as the Association of Malaysian Hauliers has yet to agree to it.
Lim also said as part of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, PKA is looking at improving the connectivity bet-ween Northport and Westports due to the high cost of inter-terminal transfer of containers between the two ports.
The regulator is mulling the possibility of having a dedicated road for transporters between the ports, so as to reduce the number of accidents on public roads as well as to cut the handling costs between the two ports.
By: btimes.com.my
