The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has opposed a Chattogram Port Authority’s proposal to release garment sector businesses’ imported goods from the private inland container depots.
The trade body claimed that the process of releasing goods from the places was time consuming and it would increase the cost of business.
It requested the National Board of Revenue to continue the existing scope for releasing imported goods from the Chattogram port to reduce the cost of apparel export.
BGMEA president Rubana Huq made the request in a letter written on December 17 to NBR chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem in this regard.
Referring to media reports regarding the CPA proposal to release all imported goods from private ICDs, also known as off-docks, she said that the readymade garment sector would lose its export competitiveness if the proposal is accepted.
The CPA on December 1 in a letter to the NBR recommended increasing the number of items to be released from off-docks and gradually bringing all imported items under the scheme to reduce the container congestion in the Chattogram port.
Currently, only 37 types of low-risk products, including rice, wheat, waste paper, chickpeas, pulse, raw cotton, scrap, maize, soya bean, marble chips, ball clay, onion, ginger, garlic, fertiliser, soda ash, dates, sugar, bitumen, marble stone and sodium sulphate are released from off-docks after import through the port while export procedures of all products are completed in the off-docks.
Rubana said that RMG export was now facing severe crisis due to negative impact of COVID-19.
International buyers are cancelling or suspending export orders and so far the amount of cancelled or suspended export orders has stood at $3.18 billion, she said.
She mentioned that RMG exporters took delivery of their imported consignments from the private ICDs during April 24, 2020 to June 14, 2020 as per an NBR instruction amid container congestions in the port amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Exporters alleged a delay in export completion due to time-consuming procedures in taking release of consignments from the off-docks due to lack of space, equipment and labours, she said.
It took six to seven days to get consignments released from off-docks whereas it usually takes two days in port, she said.
The rate of charges in off-docks is also higher than that in the Chattogram port, she said.
‘It is not possible to take delivery of the consignments from off-docks at this moment of crisis due to additional charge and time,’ she said.
NBR officials said that the CPA had long been recommending that the tax authorities make arrangements for delivery of more containers in off-docks or at the premises of importers instead of the port premises to reduce the congestion in the port and increase its efficiency in container handling.
According to the CPA, all FCL containers in all ports of developed countries are released from off-docks.
Currently, only 20-22 per cent of full container load containers are delivered to importers from the 18 off-docks in the port city, 10 per cent are taken delivery at the consignees’ premises and the remaining containers are delivered from the port premises, it said.
Several thousands of trucks and covered vans enter into the port premises everyday causing traffic jam, container congestion and security threats, the CPA said in the letter to the NBR.
The problems can be solved by gradual shifting of all import consignments to the off-docks for release, it said.
Source : New Agebd
