Ataishan, Chairman of the National Committee for Transportation at Chambers' Council who is also the Chairman of Land Transportation at the Chamber of Commerce in the Eastern Province, said the problem of accumulated cars at King Fahd Causeway remained unsolved despite strenuous efforts made to put an end to this problem. He pointed out that the trucks to and from Bahrain remain for two or three days just to complete the necessary customs formalities. He said the committee has suggested establishing dry docks on the Saudi and Bahraini sides where the trucks can be inspected by the authorities concerned to overcome the congestion problem pointing out that the dry docks may serve as transition stations as well. He said the committee is working on other solutions since the current situation is inflicting huge loses on the transport companies. He said the current global economic crisis has already affected the transport market in the Kingdom as business has dropped between 15-25 percent. The official said the size of the imported consignments in the Kingdom's seaports has significantly fallen due to the drop in the size of local demand. He, however, expected that the imports would pick up in the next couple of months due to an increase in the demand for Ramadan goods. Meanwhile, comments by a member of Bahrain's Chamber of Commerce and Industry saying that the King Fahd Causeway was sinking have been put down to a “mistranslation”, Al-Watan daily reports. Abdul Hakim Al-Shammari said that his remarks, which were published on Monday by the English-language newspaper Gulf Daily News, were the result of a mistranslation. Al-Shammari reasserted that the causeway was not in fact sinking. “I never uttered the word ‘sinking',” Al-Shammari told Al-Watan. “I think what happened was that there was a misunderstanding between me and the editor over some similar words that came up in our conversation.” Al-Shammari said that it was the increasingly heavy vehicle congestion that was threatening the safety of the causeway, not its sinking into the sea. Gulf Daily News reported Al-Shammari as saying that the causeway had already sunk a “few centimeters” in the last few years and that urgent repairs were needed. “Bridges worldwide are meant as passages for travelers and goods, but they are not designed on reclaimed land like the causeway,” Al-Shammari was quoted as saying. “We have a situation every day where thousands of tons of goods carried by trucks are waiting for hours on the bridge and that puts pressure on the structure.”
