Staff Reporter :
The Chittagong port has been rendered almost unusable for trade as containers have piled up at the yard of the prime seaport of the country, according to port insiders.
Almost 90% of the capacity has been exceeded, although the port needs at least 15% of yard space to perform day-to-day work, they said.
Meanwhile, the new draft export policy 2021-2024 has been approved with a special focus on providing equal policy support to all the export-oriented sectors and the annual export target has been raised to $80 billion from the existing target of $60 billion.
However, insiders said that by the end of 2024, the total trade volume of the country will be more than $150 billion. At present, the additional capacity of the port is being used for the current trade of $90 billion. As a result, it will be nearly impossible for the port to carry new trade loads with the existing capacity.
According to the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), 4,209 ships anchored at the port last year, up from 3,728 in 2020. The CPA handled 28,39,977 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers in 2020 and 32,14,548 in 2021. Moreover, last year, the cargo handling through this port grew nearly 13% to 116.7 million metric tons, which was 103.2 million in 2020.
Importers often bring in multiple containers of similar products, such as freezers, tires, animal feed, food supplements, and so on, from abroad.
But recently, in the case of such products, the importers declare less than container load (LCL) instead of full container load (FCL). As a result, the products of the same importer can be seen in different containers, which take up valuable space in port sheds once unloaded.
