Vessel carrying foodstuff, equipment to dock on Friday

Less than a week after the arrival of a major vessel from the Far East Asian region at the Hamad Port, another large vessel is expected at the country's major harbour on Friday from the same region, which is emerging as a major trading partner of Qatar.

Sources told this newspaper that Mediterranean Shipping Company's MSC Vita is scheduled to arrive at the port on Friday morning.

The vessel having a capacity of more than 9000TEU had left Shanghai in China on June 8. It later stopped in Ningbo and Shenzhen, also in China, on its way to Qatar. The ship is also carrying cargoes from Singapore, and Colombo as well, inquiries found.

The vessel left Colombo on June 24 and reached Umm Qasr in Iraq on July 3. A spokesperson for MSC said the ship left the Iraq port around noon Thursday.

Besides considerable quantities of food items, the ship is said to be carrying heavy equipment for the local construction sector.

The MSC official also informed that another feeder vessel of their company would arrive at Hamad Port from Salalah on July 10. The vessel, Sea Boxer, had called on at Hamad Port a week ago, with cargoes from the Sultanate of Oman. This time, the ship has also loaded containers from the port in Sohar.

Meanwhile, local shipping industry sources expressed hope that the activities at Hamad Port would pick up momentum by the end of this month with more vessels expected at the port in the next two weeks.