Port Decongestion: NBR move yet to prove effective
A National Board of Revenue's (NBR's) temporary permission to shift import-laden containers from the Chattogram port to private inland container depots (ICDs) as a decongestion effort seems to have borne no fruit.
Rather, it now poses a threat of container congestion at the private ICDs as deliveries from there also remains poor.
The private ICDs are already choked with a backlog of export cargoes.
Port users said such initiatives would prove futile unless importers start taking deliveries at their regular pace.
Import-laden containers have been piling up at the port due to a record low in deliveries being taken amidst the Eid holidays and countrywide lockdown.
The NBR on July 25 gave the permission to move all types of import-laden containers to the ICDs till August 31.
Previously, containers carrying 38 types of items were allowed to be taken to the ICDs to be unstuffed and delivered from there. Some 43,574 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers were lying at the port against its storage capacity of 49,018 TEUs up until the morning of July 25, when the NBR order came.
The CPA chairman earlier said they would try to keep less than 40,000 TEUs at the port by shifting the remaining to make operational activities smooth at the port.
As of yesterday morning, the port had 42,585 TEUs. A total of 3,925 TEUs of import containers were sent to the 19 ICDs in the last three days till yesterday afternoon, according to the ICDs.
But a majority had the previously allowed 38 items and a few had the newly permitted items, said the ICD sources.
In the permission order, the NBR set a condition for all containers to be scanned before being transferred while physical examination of all those carrying commercial items.
It is taking time for implementing these conditions, said the sources.
The ICDs currently do not have adequate capacity to receive a big chunk of import-laden containers from the port, said Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association Secretary Ruhul Amin Sikder.
"Currently we have over 12,000 TEUs of export-laden containers in the ICDs while usually 6,000 TEUs are stored," he said.
"We would not be able to receive much until a good portion of these export laden containers can be shipped off," he said.
Another problem is that importers are not promptly receiving goods off of containers being shifted, he said.
Taking deliveries from the ICDs is a time consuming and expensive process, said Chittagong Customs Clearing and Forwarding Association General Secretary Altaf Hossain Bachchu.
Importers, mainly readymade garment factory owners, prefer taking delivery of raw materials directly from the port, he said.
Echoing him, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) First Vice President Syed Nazrul Islam said until the factories opened, deliveries both from the port and the ICDs would not gain momentum.
He, however, said some of their members, on being requested by the BGMEA central committee, have started taking deliveries.
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