KARACHI: Shipping costs for Pakistani exporters to the United States have surged by more than 200 percent on some routes, as fallout from the Iran war disrupts shipping lanes and drives up war-risk insurance and fuel costs. A container shipment from Karachi to New York that once cost around USD 2,000 is now being quoted at USD 8,000 to USD 9,000, said Ismail Suttar, founding chairman of the Salt Manufacturers Association of Pakistan (SMAP), warning that the added cost could undermine the competitiveness of Pakistani products in the US market. Suttar urged the government to take immediate notice of the situation and formulate an emergency strategy to contain the impact of rising freight charges on exporters. “Shipping rates have increased globally, but the increase on some routes from Pakistan is disproportionately high,” he said, adding that exporters were being forced to absorb a substantial additional cost. He said the disruption had also hit the Karachi-Jebel Ali route, where freight charges that previously stood at USD 100-200 had risen to around USD 4,000-5,000, even as vessel availability declined considerably — a supply-demand imbalance that had further driven up rates. The
