Songa Cheetah gets on arrival berth at Ctg port

Container vessel MV Songa Cheetah that came directly from the Port of Ravenna in Italy got a berth at Chattogram port immediately after its arrival yesterday.

The vessel carrying 945 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of empty containers and seven TEUs of import containers reached the outer anchorage of the port at around 11:30am.

The ship got the berth at jetty No. 4 of New Mooring Container Terminal at around 1.15pm, said Mohammad Rashed, chairman of Reliance Shipping and Logistics Ltd, the ship's local agent.

Chattogram Port Authority Secretary Md Omar Faruk said the CPA had allowed the on arrival berth considering the importance of the new service. This would open a new door for the country's export trade.

The vessel had left the Port of Ravenna on January 17.

It may depart on Monday with 1,100 TEUs of export-laden containers, containing mostly readymade garments. With this, export goods would be shipped to a European destination directly from Bangladesh for the first time.

Italian shipping company Kalypso Compagnia di Navigazione has introduced the direct service with two small-sized vessels: Songa Cheetah and Cape Flores.

Due to Chattogram port's inability to accommodate large vessels, containers are first transported on small feeder vessels to four transhipment ports -- Colombo, Singapore, and Tanjung Pelepas and the Port Klang of Malaysia -- and some ports in China.

Then, containers are loaded onto bigger vessels before they are sent to their final destinations in Europe, the US and Africa.