Exporters claim that the capacity of connected roadways falls well short of the improved import-export handling capacity of Bangladesh’s major seaport, causing cargo timetables to be missed on a regular basis. The Chittagong Seaport’s cargo-handling and-releasing capacity has been increased in recent years as a result of several government initiatives, but consignment transportation on highways has remained unsatisfactory.
Readymade garment exporters have found the existing insufficient road capacities as one of the major obstacles to shipment of products on time to the international buyers.
Some 7,000 trucks and lorries enter and exit from the seaport every day with import-export goods. Transportation of those products to the factory through the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway remained troublesome due to limited road facilitates. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) first vice-president Syed Nazrul Islam Chowdhury feels that heavy weight-loading capacity with 10 to 12 lanes is required on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway to materialise government bid to boost industrialisation.
“We would place formal request to the government over one of the major hurdles to export of goods due to insufficient road capacity,” he says.
The exporters and importers would not be able to reap full benefit of the port’s capacity development unless the road capacity is increased to transport the products, he adds.
The Dhaka-Chittagong Highway practically remains a four-lane one despite the government claim it as six-lane, sometimes, he observed. Official sources say work has already begun to elevate the existing four-lane highways to six-lane ones.
Mr Islam notes that the government has been developing Economic Zones and Bay Terminal and has launched different development projects in the port city and in its adjacent areas. “So, road capacitates on the highways should be increased simultaneously for ensuring smooth supply of goods.”
