Maritime Educational Endowment Fund
Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Mr Junaid Anwar Chaudhry announced the launch of a Maritime Educational Endowment Fund sharing that the initiative will cultivate a skilled maritime workforce essential for the country’s future. He emphasised that the Maritime Educational Endowment Fund underscores his ministry’s dedication to sustainable human capital development as investing in coastal youth would cement the foundation for a resilient and prosperous maritime sector tomorrow.
The scholarship programme is aimed at promoting inclusive development by enabling access to quality education for youth from over 70 coastal and fishing communities hailing from the coastal provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.
Credit ; PTV
It appears that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs will restructure Corporate Social Responsibility contributions from organisations operating under its jurisdiction .
Ports and Retaliatory Tariffs
Blue Economy Incubator
Ports being integral nodes in the global trade grid on one hand can maintain essential maritime industries such as cargo handling and ship building complemented by marine industries such as fisheries, defence, tourism and hydrocarbon and natural resource management. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates the maritime or “Blue Economy” to ascend USD $ 3 trilion by the end of the decade. Ports don many hats being a landlord, operator, regulator and environmental steward while encountering the challenges of climate change and ageing coastal infrastructure. If gelled into a public-private partnership model, ports can instigate sustainable development of both urban and ocean economy. A noteworthy instance of maritime incubatory initiative is the Port of San Diego “Blue Economy Incubator” designed to create, scale and develop blue economy business ventures along the San Diego Bay and the coastline albeit in an environmentally and maritime industry amenable manner. The Blue Economy Incubator initiative is a pilot commercial and business project tasked with eliminating barriers for entrepreneurs as ports are endowed with vast revenues flowing through ports and terminals and convenient arranging of financing of commercially strategic assets . Historically ports maintain little known yet mutually beneficial relationships along the waterfront and in todays dynamically changing world of currency manipulation and tariff barriers can spur blue economy tech and digital innovation. Going one step further in San Diego, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management have established a “ Start Blue “ venture basically an advanced engineering start up to tackle ocean oriented challenges. Ports and the maritime industry and relevant commercial stakeholders or Blue Economy can be utilised to maintain and even enhance a country’s competitive export edge or export margins which are usually slim. This can be done in many ways , both tangible and intangible. Needless to say for countries where exports involve low value addition and are import based the input costs of energy and raw materials can be slashed from both a policy and operational angle by adjusting port , terminal, logistic, freight , cargo handling and transportation costs in short, medium and long term . Economies of scale like China and Vietnam hinge around relatively lower transportation costs. Whether it is a US retaliatory tariff or of other origin the fiscal cushion become inflated.
US Port Charges on Chinese Owned Ships
China’s COSCO Group the world’s fourth-largest liner operator is heavily exposed to the newly proposed United States Trade Representative (USTR) US port fees than any other international carrier and likely to incur significant fuel and sailing costs while rerouting if and when USTR proposals are implemented COSCO shipping will be at a competitive disadvantage compared to to its rivals in Europe and Asia. If the USTR goes ahead with the revised charges for port calls by Chinese manufactured or Chinese operated cargo carriers the US retail sector may face steep stacking fees rendering U.S. export prices unattractive and foist annual import costs of around $30 billion on American consumers.
USTR Timelines for Chinese Operated Ships
The USTR has set an extended timeline for liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers which are now required to move 1% of U.S. LNG exports on U.S.-built, operated and flagged vessels within 4 years. That percentage would have to be increased to 4% by 2035 and to 15% by the year 2047. From October 14 this year onwards Chinese manufactured and owned ships will be charged USD $50 /net ton increasing by $30 a year over the next 3 years. Chinese manufactured vessels owned by non-Chinese firms will be charged a concessional rate of $18 / net ton, with annual fee increases of $5 over the same period. As China produces about 1,700 ships per year compared to around 5 for the U.S the USTR and President Donald Trump doctrine is expected to result in an expansion of domestic shipyard capacity. USTR port fees on Chinese vessel owners and operators for the first 180 days as of April 17 , 2025 will be set at $0. In the first phase, after 180 days, the charge will be $50 per net ton per U.S. voyage, increasing incrementally over the following years up to $140 by April 17, 2028. The fee will be charged up to five times per year, per vessel. For Chinese-built ships the fee is $0 for the first 180 days, then $18 / net ton increasing incrementally to $ 33 by April 17, 2028. Again, the fee will be charged up to five times per year, per vessel.
The proposed USTR changes exempt U.S.-flagged carriers operating Chinese-built ships in short-sea service, specialty export vessels such as liquid bulk carriers, empty ships arriving at U.S. ports to load exports such as wheat and soybeans , carrying U.S. government cargo , ships with a capacity of equal to or less than 4,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEU’s) , 55,000 deadweight tons or individual bulk capacity of 80,000 deadweight tons. Also exempted from USTR revised port tariffs or charges are ships entering a U.S. port in the continental United States from a voyage of less than 2,000 nautical miles from a foreign port, U.S owned vessels where the U.S. entity owning the vessel is controlled by U.S. persons and is at least 75% beneficially owned by U.S. persons and vessels operated on the Great Lakes. Foreign roll-on/roll-off auto carriers popularly known as ro-ros, are eligible for refunds of port fees if they order or take delivery of a U.S. built vessel of equivalent capacity in the next 3 years and a vessel operator is eligible for a fee remission for up to 3 years if it orders and takes delivery of a U.S.-built vessel of equivalent size within that time period.
The USTR has indicated that there will be charged port fees on foreign-built car carriers based on their capacity ostensibly to accelerate construction of ro-ro vessels at U.S. shipyards. The fee will be set at $0 for 180 days and $150 per car equivalent (CEU) unit thereafter. For Chinese built ships, the fee starts at $18 / NT or $120 per container exposing a container ship with 15,000 containers to an astronomical fee of $1.8 million. The proposed port fees could amount to as much as $3 million per ship per port call with a catastrophic impact on ocean shipping to U.S. ports particularly smaller US ports as carriers would bypass and consolidate port calls at the bigger container gateways and causing also causing congestion at the largest hubs with spillover logistic delays at rail routes and highways .
Africa Shipping Cost Tariffs & Freight
Its a matter of concern that Africa controls less than 2 % of global shipping tonnage despite commanding over 12 % of global trade routes , huge export potential of natural and hydrocarbon reserves , marine food processing and fisheries, coastal tourism and an extensive coastline of more than 30,000 km. Nigeria foregoes over USD $10 billion annually in freight charges to foreign shipping lines . Ladi Olubowale , Executive President of the African Shipowners Association has highlighted that the Intra-African trade under AfCFTA is projected to exceed $130 billion by the end of this decade . While the global fleet capacity has reached 2.4 billion DWT two years back Africa’s fleet capacity in world shipping is minimal . The African maritime nations should develop a strategic fleet capacity concomitantly with human resource capacity at terminals , logistics and ports including oil tankers, bulk carriers, feeders to drive sustainable trade growth. The African Shipping Association estimates availability of Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) at around $700 million for qualified shipowners supported by institutional investors such as development banks, pension funds, export credit agencies and shipyard partnerships amenable to arranging export credit-backed financing for new ” green tonnage ” and establishing of African regional and commercial maritime hubs .
Author ; Nadir Mumtaz
Trademark Blue Economy IPO-PK
Credit ;
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250418-us-unveils-new-port-fees-for-chinese-linked-ships
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-china-ship-cost-in-tariffs-trade-war/
https://www.rila.org/blog/2025/06/from-port-to-shelf-how-tariffs-influence-the-price
https://www.dawn.com/news/1913359/scholarships-for-coastal-communities-unveiled
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/09/world-maritime-day-ports-blue-economy-innovation/
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