Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has increased the passenger fee at its ports by five times to SR50 from SR10 for each passenger arriving at or departing from Saudi ports.

Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, the vice president of Mawani for policies and legislation, said in a circular that the new rates will come into force from Jan. 1, 2021 and the authority has approved amendments related to the new charges of various port services.

The circular includes various types of restructured fees to be collected from the ship’s owner or agent, fares from the ship’s owner or agent, and from the owner of goods. It also includes the structure of fares for transit and ship cargo services, as well as for equipment and services.

According to the second edition of the port services fees and charges system released by Mawani, the port entry fees amounted to SR1,000 for a single visit of any ship and SR1,000 as departure fees. Mawani also raised the fees for container ships that are unloaded with specialized container cranes from SR1,500 to SR6,300 for each crane per hour or part of an hour, increasing the fees by 320 percent.

As for the fees for cars and self-propelled equipment, for which the charges are calculated according to their weight, their fees will increase from SR100 to SR140 for a unit of fewer than 3 tons, an increase of 40 percent. The authority decided to raise fees for cars, which ranged between 3-10 tons, by 33 percent to reach SR200 instead of SR150.

Fees for cars and equipment weighing between 10 and 40 tons were also raised by 12.5 percent to reach SR540 instead of SR400. As for the equipment with more than 40 tons, its fees increased by 35 percent to SR1,350 from SR1,000. The fees for head of sheep also raised 50 percent to SR3 from SR2.

It is noteworthy that Mawani supervises the management and operation of nine major ports on the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf coasts of the Kingdom, of which six are commercial and three are industrial ones.