Alan Peat THE DURBAN port congestion surcharge - a massive US$75 per TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) intended to be imposed on importers and exporters - will not be applied! Searching for an official update on the issue from the Europe-SA Conference - the line grouping which proposed the surcharge in the first place - FTW approached Steve Pollington of SAECS (SA-Europe Container Service) and a member of the conference, for an answer. But his official reply said nothing new. "This is still under discussion amongst the lines," he told FTW, "but an announcement should be forthcoming soon." However, talking to authoritative inside sources, we were told that the moratorium now in place reveals the lines' thinking. "Clearly, the port congestion surcharge is not going to be implemented now," FTW was told.
