CHITTAGONG: Bangladesh’s biggest seaport fails to keep pace with growing containerized cargoes as its holding capacity and other transportation logistics did not expand proportionately.
Official sources said the capacity of Chittagong port has expanded around 8000 Twenty-foot-Equivalent Units (TEUs) in five years while the number of cargo-handling equipment remained almost the same.
In a marked contrast, the container traffic increased by nearly 1.0 million TEUs to 2.3 million TEUs over a period of five years, starting from January 2012. Port-insiders said the seaport has an annual capacity of holding 1.7 million TEUs.
This mismatch might cause disruption to supply chains, leading to rise in consumer goods prices. The economy as a whole may also suffer.
To cope with the reality, the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) many times forced the port-users to take back both laden and empty containers quickly outside the port yards to clear the port space for the new arrivals.
They also force incoming vessels to wait in bay for four to five days following space constraints on the port premises.
According to statistics, Chittagong port has now the capacity of holding 36,357 TEUs at a time in its different setups. But it handles more than 40,000 TEUs more often than not.
Similarly, the container growth is over 10 per cent on a year-on-year basis but the procurement of logistics remained stalled for long. The spaces for accommodation increased meagerly.
Officials who work in port’s procurement section said that they had a restriction on procurement of fresh equipment by the parliamentary standing committee on the Ministry of Shipping (MoS).
It made a move to procure 62 heavy-to-light pieces of equipment in 2014 at a cost of Tk 11.20 billion.
But the parliamentary panel argued that the CPA should not make such procurement as it does not operate terminals. Currently, private berth operators manage container handling by using port equipment.
However, a committee formed by the MoS has cleared the way and the port authority has floated tender for some of the equipment.
Mahbubul Alam, president of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “The capacity of the port remained almost static during past few years.”
The leading businessman, however, said there is no alternative but to increase the space and the equipment of the port to cope with the situation.
Jafar Alam, a member of the CPA, told the FE that they had taken measures to build the port’s capacity. He said the capacity will be enhanced shortly as the work for building terminals is on.
The Chittagong port, one of the ancient in the region, has now several dedicated terminals to handle containers, starting since late 1970s.
The port is equipped with 17 units of reach stacker–a vehicle used for handling intermodal cargo containers in small terminals or medium-sized ports.
