Container vessels’ waiting time for berthing at the country’s largest port, Chittagong seaport, thins into zero days partly following some capacity augmentation in gearing up for a trade rebound.
Now ships’ stay time at the jetties spans a normal 72 hours, officials said, though shippers fear a return of the rogue when Bangladesh fully reopens from today (Aug 11).
There was more than six days’ waiting for vessels in July, on average, that had frustrated both the shippers and consignees.
This scenario is also the same for bulk carriers that carry unpackaged bulk cargoes, mostly grains.
Such developments have been persisting over the past three days until Tuesday, according to official statistics prepared by the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA).
Such improvement, consequently, has also eased the export-backlog position at the private depots.
People familiar with the developments at the CPA said that this is an outcome of implementing many measures undertaken to ease the shipping situation.
They are: raising the number of berths for container vessels to 12, priority berthing for Colombo-bound vessels and allowing by the NBR the storing of all cargoes at private depots.
“Raising the number of berths, priority berthing for Colombo- bound vessels and forced shipment helped ease the situation ….” Omar Faruk, secretary at the CPA, told the FE over phone.
However, priority berthing for Colombo-going vessels now has been withdrawn following the developments.
But, many shipping executives say that the development at Ctg port is a temporary phenomenon.
They argued that there are some congestion at the Port of Singapore and Port of Colombo, resulting in reduction in the number of arrivals of vessels in Chattogram.
“Ships are taking time to arrive in Ctg from both Port of Colombo and Port of Singapore as there are some congestions existing,” said one senior executive working at a feeder-service-providing company.
He has expressed the fear that the port will again be congested within next few weeks when the existing congestion at the shipping hubs [Colombo and Singapore] will be thinning out.
In the meantime, the export backlog at the privately owned depots dropped significantly to 4,500 TEUs on Tuesday. It was more than 17,000 TEUs in July.
Exporters said that garment shipments dropped during the first week of August as the factories remained closed until July 31.
“Shipment pressure has reduced to some extent as the factories were closed until July 31 because of the lockdown”, said Salam Murshedy, managing director at the Envoy group, a leading clothing player.
Source : The Financial Express
