During today's meeting, the committee met with the Maldives Ports Limited and Ministry of Economic Development and Trade officials regarding issue raised by The Maldives Trade Association (MTA)’s concerns regarding Maldives Ports Limited's decision to shift back to charging certain fees in US dollars from 01st April. In this regard, MPL explained how the process works and reasons for their decision. During the meeting MPL stated that the stevedoring charge are charges levied on loading/unloading of cargo from ship to barge/jetty or vice versa by manual labour/equipment, and mostly goods are imported into the Maldives by CIF (cost, insurance, freight) or FOB (free on board) basis. And in CIF freighting, the consignee makes the payment to the shipping agent or operator in dollars and stevedoring charge is included in freight charges, when stevedoring charge was to be paid to MPL in Dhivehi rufiyaa, the shipping agent exchange aforementioned dollars at an increased price from dollar black market and pays it to MPL in Dhivehi rufiyaa.

Furthermore, MPL informed that since 2011, MPL has been charging the stevedoring charge in Dhivehi rufiyaa and the two parties currently working as shipping agents in the Maldives, TTS and MSS, have been consulted before making this change.

MPL stated that shipping agents had been informed about the company's decision in February 2024 after the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade gave permission to it and had given approximately one-and-a-half months' time from April 2024 before formally informing their decision to revert the Stevedoring charges to be paid in US dollars.

Ministry of Economic Development and Trade revealed that no objection to charge stevedoring charge in US dollars was given because it was a business decision taken by MPL to resolve the company's difficulties in getting dollars and procuring the port machinery. Moreover, ministry made the decision as they do not foresee that businesses will have to spend extra money due to this change as the stevedoring charge will be paid with freight charges in advance and since those who bring goods through FOB were few and it was a small volume, it was not expected to have a major impact on the economy.

To conclude MPL highlighted that the decision was necessary for the country's economy, because it seems to be detrimental to the economy of the Maldives to transfer the proceeds of MPL to another country after acquiring a profit from currency exchange in any form. In addition, this will make it easier for the company to operate, which is expected to increase the efficiency of the company and will in return benefit the country. Moreover, Noting that this change will ensure that the dollar will be circulated through Banks in Maldives at 15.42 Dhivehi rufiyaa exchange rate, which will help to resolve the black market issue of the dollar to an extent.