June 7: A shipping company in India has reduced transportation charge for the goods imported to Nepal from overseas. The cost has been reduced for the ‘direct transshipment’ of goods which was implemented some time ago with an aim to make foreign trade more competitive.

Nepal’s Consul General to India Ek Narayan Aryal informed New Business Age that Kolkata-based shipping company CMA CGM has lowered the cost of direct transshipment of the goods to Nepal. According to him, Nepali importers will now have to pay IRs 8,000 to IRs 10,000 less for each container carrying goods from Kolkata’s port to the border of Nepal.

Likewise, the cost for transshipment of goods from Visakhapatnam port has also been revised.

The importers said that it used to costs them more than Rs 40,000 for transporting a container to Birgunj Dry Port from Kolkota. 

The reduction in transportation charge has been a relief to the Nepali importers who had to bear extra cost ever since the introduction of direct transshipment system, which was initiated for reducing shipping expenses. But the expenses had grown instead.

Aryal said that the decrease in transportation cost will increase competition among shipping companies. He said, “This is just a beginning of lowering of the transportation cost. Now other companies will also start to decrease the transportation cost.”