Mangaluru: As part of business promotion initiative of New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT), a business meet was organized in Kushalnagar on January 06.

The objective of the meet was to interact with the Kodagu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coffee Exporters, Coffee Curers and Logistics providers of Madikeri, Kushalnagar, Chikmagalur and Hassan region on the eve of the forthcoming coffee plucking season.

Major coffee exporters, coffee curers, logistic providers, members from Kodagu Chamber and representatives from Coffee Board were attended the meet and had a fruitful interaction on routing their cargo through the port.

The container traffic in New Mangalore Port is picking up during the current financial year. So far during 2016-17(Upto December 2016) 66,848 TEUs (20 foot equivalent units) were handled against 53,874 TEUs handled during the corresponding period of previous year (year-on-year basis) and has registered a growth rate of 24%.

This growth rate and Increase in the container traffic is on account of frequency of container vessels, creation of enhanced infrastructure like additional container storage yards, handling equipment, simplified documentation procedure in the port, the NMPT officials said.