Air shipment to Europe hits a snag
For the last four days, Mohammed Abul Hossain, a vegetable exporter, has been trying to send his consignments to England but each of his attempts ended in failure as two scanners solely used for Europe-bound cargoes are out of order at Hazrat Shahjahal International Airport (HSIA).
The exporter had to make do with selling each consignment ofthe exportable vegetables at local markets at roughly one-fifth of their export value of Tk 100,000, which is excluding freight charge. Nevertheless, this is causing him to incur losses on his investment.
The problem does not end here.
On Tuesday, his buyer, Bangla Port at the UK, threatened to stop continuing doing business with Bangladeshi suppliers because of their failure to ship cargoes on time.
The buyer was irked by disruptions in supply for traffic gridlocks, floods and problems at airports and over flights.
"He is very annoyed. He told me that he would rather switch to vegetable exporters in India to ensure that supply is smooth. It is really frustrating," said Hossain, proprietor of Lee Enterprise, over the phone yesterday.
He is one of the 15 regular fresh vegetables exporters who are suffering from the same problem for nearly a week after the last explosive detection system used for examining Europe-bound export cargoes from the Dhaka airport stopped functioning.
The airport has half a dozen scanners at the cargo section of which two are fitted with explosive detection systems to dedicatedly scan vegetables flown to European destinations such as the UK and Italy.
One of the duo went out of order in August this year, said a senior official of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).
The second one had been running but it too went out of order early this month, hampering air shipment of all exports including vegetables, garments and other items to European destinations. A senior official of Emirates Dhaka office said all the exporters were suffering because of the breakdown of the scanners.
"Following the malfunctioning of the last machine, bomb detection dogs are being used to check whether there are any explosives in the export cargoes destined to Europe. This is inadequate," said the airline official seeking to remain unnamed.
"Besides, as the export cargoes have to be rechecked at the transit, shipment time is increasing, so is the cost," he said, suggesting that the CAAB fix the scanners as soon as possible for the sake of exports.
"It should be solved with due priority," he said.
For vegetable exporters, who fetched $164 million as receipts in fiscal 2019-20, Europe is the second biggest destination after the Middle East, the workplace of a majority of Bangladeshi migrant workers.
Shipment to Europe brings nearly 40 per cent of the total export earnings from fresh vegetables, said Mohammed Monsur, general secretary of the Bangladesh Fruits Vegetables and Allied Products Exporters' Association.
He said vegetable shipment to the Middle East has continued but exports to Europe has almost got stopped because of the scanning issue at the HSIA in Dhaka.
Hossain said on a normal day they export 10 to 12 tonnes of fresh vegetables to Europe.
Now, the quantity of shipment has reduced to 2 to 3 tonnes as the limited number of bomb detection dogs can not screen all the export cargoes at the airport.
CAAB Chairman Air Vice Marshal M Mafidur Rahman could not be reached over the phone and text messages to comment on the issue.
Contacted, HSIA Director Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan said the scanners stopped functioning as their "bearings" needed to be changed.
"The bearings have already been brought from abroad. Tools, engineers and technician from Dubai, India and Malaysia are expected to come within the next seven days," he said.
The machines will become operationalonce the bearings are changed, he added.
Ahsan said problems over visa issuance for the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the process of fixing the problem. "We have been told that by the first week of November the machines will be workable," he added.
And export cargoes can again be screened by the scanners from the second week of November, according to the CAAB official.
Ahsan said the frequency of screening by dogs has been increased to facilitate shipment of export cargoes to Europe.
However, the exporters' association General Secretary Monsur said a section of importers would inevitably switch to suppliers in other countries because of the shipment problem.
"Once they go, it becomes difficult to get them back," he said.
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