QTerminals offers incentives for main shipping lines

QTerminals has announced that it will offer incentives to the main shipping lines that have direct services calling on Hamad Port and do not transship within a range of 250Nm from the port.

The incentives will come into effect from Friday and the nature and mechanism of their application will be revealed later, the company said on Thursday, as reported by the official Qatar News Agency.

QTerminals is a terminal operating entity jointly established by Mwani Qatar, which owns 51% of the company, and Milaha, which owns the remaining 49%.

The company is responsible for enabling Qatar's imports and exports, its maritime trade flows and stimulating economic growth locally and regionally. It provides container, general cargo, roll-on/roll-off (RoRo), livestock and offshore supply services in Phase 1 of Hamad Port, Qatar’s gateway to world trade.

QTerminals achieved 2mn TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and 5mn tonnes of general cargo at the end of October last year, thereby tripling the levels since the beginning of the unjust diplomatic and trade embargo in June 2017 by the Saudi-led quartet.

This was achieved in record time as operations at Hamad Port had started only in October 2016.

"Changing economic trends, shifting trade patterns and worldwide demographic movements are influencing the supply chain, and QTerminals is ensuring that Hamad Port is fully prepared to handle any supply chain changes," QTerminals CEO Neville Bissett had said during an event held to celebrate the milestone.

In January this year, QTerminals handled 109,349 TEUs of containers, 5,534 RoRo units and 35,516 livestock heads. There were some 133 vessel calls, excluding offshore services and military.

Within a short period of time, Hamad Port has established a global shipping network - providing a "stable and reliable supply chain at all times and in all circumstances".