Bahrain: GOP Holds 25th Board Meeting

The General Organisation of Sea Ports (GOP) held its 25th Board of Directors Meeting under the chairmanship of Shaikh Daij bin Salman Al Khalifa. During the meeting, the Board approved GOP’s new tariff structure, following intensive discussions at the Board level and at the level of the stakeholders, including the private sector, over the last several months.

This decision comes in line with the efforts of General Organisation of Sea Ports to streamline all its charges for port and maritime services including services provided at Mina Salman and to the private jetties.

This follows the Board’s approval last year of the revised tariff for the Khalifa Bin Salman Port, which has been implemented since September 2010.

The Board took into account the circumstances and views of the stakeholders and the fact that the GOP tariff structure had not been revised since more than two decades. It also noted that the new tariff structure has been designed in such a way as to be competitive regionally whilst at the same time covering the organisation’s costs involved for providing maritime infrastructure and services that match high international standards.

The Board instructed the management to implement the new tariff in stages between now and January 2012. The new tariff structure will be published shortly and the implementation stages will be announced in due course.

Another major decision taken at the meeting was the approval of the project for further dredging of Bahrain’s approach channel to accommodate the newer generation vessels and to benefit the Kingdom’s major industries. This follows the completion of Phase 1 of the project for dredging the approach channel last year. Whilst giving its approval for Phase 2 of the dredging project, the Board instructed the management to expedite the required processes for moving forward expeditiously to ensure early completion of the project.

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Source: GOP, June 23, 2011