Vegetables worth $5.4m stuck at Karachi port

Commodity importers and drug makers continue to face problems in opening letters of credit (LCs) for the import of raw materials and finished products because of a shortage of dollars in the interbank market.

All Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters, Importers and Merchants Association (PFVA) Chairman Mohammad Shehzad Sheikh told the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday that 417 containers worth more than $5.4 million — 250 of onions worth $2.1m, 63 of ginger valuing $0.8m, and 104 of garlic amounting to $2.5m — were currently held up on various terminals of the Karachi Port.

The reason for the holdup is said to be the refusal by commercial banks to release documents because of the shortage of foreign exchange.

The inordinate delay in the clearance of vegetables will drastically increase their costs on account of terminal and shipping charges, Mr Sheikh said. As a result, consumers will have to pay higher prices, he added. He urged the ministry to take immediate notice of the situation.

‘No raw material for drugs’

Meanwhile, drug makers also warned that with no opening of letters of credit for the import of raw materials, pharmaceutical companies would not be able to continue production after two weeks, which would lead to a serious shortage of medicines in the country.

The fresh warning came a day after the doctors’ bodies — the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) — raised alarms over the shortage of medicines in the retail market and asked the government to intervene and facilitate the pharmaceuticals so they could open the LCs for import of the raw material.

“My production line contributes supplies of at least two life-saving drugs in the country,” a senior executive of a local pharmaceutical company said. “I fear I would be stopping the production of most of my products after 10 or 12 days, as I don’t have stocks of raw material left and these two would be among them. It’s just one case. There are hundreds of companies which are facing the same crisis.”

With little more than 600 pharmaceutical companies operating in the country, most have left with only two-week production material after the SBP, according to the claim by the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA), had verbally conveyed to all local banks not to open LCs due to shortage of dollars.