Containers Crowding at CTG Port on EID Vacation

It’s a repetitive scenario of all ports on every EID!

Many containers with imported goods piles up at Chattogram port primarily due to slow conveyance as operations of transport movement and factories do not come back to normal activity after every Eid vacation.

Container crowding is about to happen in the coming days as many vessels carrying imported goods normally waits near Bangladesh’s sea area to unload containers during Eid Vacations.

Both the delivery of import containers straight from the port and the transport of a good percentage of import containers from the seaport to private off-dock services become slowed since the day before Eid day every time.

About 3,000 to 4,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of import containers are being received currently at the docks from the vessels every day, where only 1,000 to 1,200 TEUs are being delivered.

If the condition does not advance, there remains a high possibility to slow down the unloading of containers from the vessels, said the seaport users of Chittagong. 

According to the figures of the port, 25,000+ TEUs of import containers remains at the port yard on normal days and it crosses 41,000+ during Eid.

Chittagong Port officials say all types of port activities remained closed on Eid day and no container was transported on the day. Before the Eid day, container transport dropped below 350 TEUs compared to about 4,000 TEUs generally handed over on a usual working day.

Md Omar Faruk, secretary to Chattogram Seaport Authority, said the figure of import containers increases during every Eid holiday. The pressure will reduce gradually when importers start taking deliveries in full swing.

Khairul Alam Sujan, director of BFFA(Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association), said distributions was yet to gear up because of the long Eid vacation.

Moreover, concerned importers are failing to get the delivery as they do not find the transports required after the Eid holiday, he said.

Sujan said the overcrowding might worsen at the end of the Eid holiday week since many other import-laden containers, which are waiting at the sea near to Bangladesh, would be added to the current stocks of containers.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net