DOHA: The Doha Port is busy improving operations to cope with rising imports as the national economy has been booming and there is time for the new port to be commissioned.
A two-storey building is under way in the port premises that will have the Customs Department, offices of the port as well as shipping agencies.
The building is expected to be ready by mid-2014 following which the port’s operations would likely become more efficient.
“We have improved our operations substantially in the past few years,” the Director of the port, Captain Umer Al Khayyat, said.
He said there was a time not too long ago when locating a container unloaded from a vessel took days.
Ships used to wait, anchored in the high seas for days as there were hardly any empty berths.
The situation today is that no ship has to wait for more than two days and loading and unloading are done faster.
“We seek information from shipping agents beforehand about ships that are on their way to Doha, so we make preparations to berth them at the port in advance,” Al Khayyat said.
He said an online cargo clearance system has been launched which can be considered an initial step towards putting a single-window clearance system in place.
He told Al Sharq in an interview published yesterday that once the new port is ready, which is being built at a cost of QR27bn ($7.41bn) over an area of 26 square kilometres, bigger vessels will be able to come to Doha directly instead of unloading at Jabel Ali Port in Dubai.
The Peninsula
