New Delhi, Apr 10 (KNN) The turnaround time by ships for all major ports has improved marginally to 4.15 days in April-September 2012 from 4.80 days over the same period last year.
 
The long turnaround time by ships add up to the transaction cost which is a major concern for exporters. Currently transaction cost accounts for 7-10 per cent of Indian exports.  For India, transaction cost for an exporter is USD 945 a container as compared to USD 500 in China, USD 450 in Malaysia.
 
The time taken to export a container is 17 days for India while it is 5 days for Denmark, 12 days for Brazil, 14 days for Mexico and 21 days for China.
 
Meanwhile the volume of cargo handled by both major and non-major ports increased by 2.81 per cent during the period of April- November 2012 in the wake of increased shipments to Europe and US.

The ports handled a combined 623.05 million tonnes (mt) of various commodities including export items such as engineering goods, gems and jewellery, chemicals, agricultural products and textiles, according to an official statement.

Significantly, the cargo traffic at major ports declined to 2.88 per cent when compared to 1.33 per cent growth during the same period last year.

Among the 13 major ports, Kandla port handled the highest volume of cargo at 69.497 mt followed by Jawaharlal Nehru Port in the south of Mumbai at 47.977 mt and Visakhapatnam at 44.201 mt.

As for the 187 non-major ports such as Mandvi, Sikka in Gujarat, Tarapur in Maharashtra and Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar, the volume of cargo handled grew by 12 per cent in April-November 2012 compared to 9 per cent growth in the corresponding period last year.

With exports looking up, the volume of shipment is expected to increase further. (KNN)